Game of Thrones

[andyb28]

Well it is supposed to be a battle for the ‘game of thrones’ and that’s still to come. Difference now is it looks like it Cersai and her 20,000 soldiers against the good guys which are probably about 27 including women* and children!

*Arya though would take down any man - and probably will take out the mountain.

Surely the hound gets to take his revenge on his brother?

[NikGixer750]

I have mixed feelings, agree that the picture quality was terrible and the it was all so dark. I get why it was dark as its cheaper but if you compare this to the big fight in Lord of the rings: two towers which was also a night battle the LOTR was way better filmed.

That aside, the first part was annoying, why would they send all the horsemen to die alone, that was never going to work. So many main characters should have died, scenes of Jamie and the tall women whos name I cant remember standing against a wall with 1000's of walkers attacking and still surviving does not really follow with how easily the walkers killed the main human army.

Felt that Ayra should have become a walker to get close to the night king, not sure how she flew out of no where to kill him when he was surrounded by all his generals and a huge force!!

Apart from the glaring mistakes or bad ideas the overall episode was enjoyable, felt tense for the full time thinking how the hell can they win this.

Guessing the next episode will just be a recap of who survived then planning to head south. But did not look like many of them survived but they do have a dragon or maybe 2 if the other one survived

[Kocka]

That aside, the first part was annoying, why would they send all the horsemen to die alone, that was never going to work. So many main characters should have died, scenes of Jamie and the tall women whos name I cant remember standing against a wall with 1000's of walkers attacking and still surviving does not really follow with how easily the walkers killed the main human army.

Felt that Ayra should have become a walker to get close to the night king, not sure how she flew out of no where to kill him when he was surrounded by all his generals and a huge force!!

this...bad episode..could be one of the worst.. and dragons, underused.. they could save that horsemen dudes.. we are waiting for night king for years and now he dies easy as that... this episode could be much more interested.. no imagination...

don't get me wrong, I love got. I read all the books twice even before the s1 start.. but maaan...disappointed

[asteclaru]

Guessing the next episode will just be a recap of who survived then planning to head south. But did not look like many of them survived but they do have a dragon or maybe 2 if the other one survived

Apparently both of the dragons are in the trailer for the next episode, so Jon's dragon has survived too.

I too am very confused as to who is still alive or not.

[kevkojak]

I simply refuse to believe anyone was disappointed with that one.
OK I have to agree that the Night King defeat was a bit of a cop-out, along with the way they predicted all the dead would die (again) if he was destroyed. I sincerely hope we get a bit more background from this three eyed raven knob. The sight of the King smiling at Dany after surviving a good blast of dragon fire was the stand out scene of the episode for me!

Enormous respect to the cast and crew - almost two months (55 days) of consecutive night shoots by all accounts just to bring us that one episode.

[KingKitega]

Agreed with those that didn't like the episode. I had high expectations for this one, and in the end felt a bit disappointed. NK destroyed too easily, and unfathomable how so many characters survived. Not long ago the humans were sh!t scared how to even fight a wight.. But, somehow Jorah, Jamie, Samwell all managed to kill hundreds of them.

Guess with 3 episodes left, not long till this is all concluded.

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[awright101]

It’s a series with Dragons, magic, rising from the dead, Zombies and people think it was unrealistic that the good guys didn’t die.
I just suspend reality in films and just enjoy the ride.
GoT is such a decisive series but for me I’m loving it

[Foxy100]

Wasn't there a whole thread through one series where Arya was trained to be a ninja? I don't think running through a hoard of baddies all under the control of one distracted bloke is too unbelievable, considering it's all fantasy anyway.

The trebuchets though, why did they fire about two or three times each over the top of the cavalry attack and not pound the baddies first? And why was the cavalry sacrificed first? Between the goodies in the castle they've fought so many battles they mush have a vague idea how to fight one, it just didn't look that clever. They knew the Ice King had a dragon, so can't have relied on their own dragons to cause most of the damage. The whole saga is called 'A Song Of Ice And Fire'. It does make me wonder why Cersei thought she was safe with some sea in the way when presumably the Ice King could have frozen it. Anyway, I thought it was great but think it was a bit too far fetched that none of the main characters were killed, there was only one giant (who was rather late to the party), the baddy dragon didn't get to do much in the way of destruction and so on.

I did think the confusion of battle was well portrayed (not that I've ever been in one...) and there are still a few questions. What did happen to that ice spear thing the Ice King threw?

The final battle's going to be a good one. Lots of ships versus two fire-breathing dragons? If only Joffrey was still around, he's still my favourite character and played brilliantly (the actor who played him, Jack Gleeson has since retired from acting, and he's only 26!).

I think Tyrion and Sansa will sit on the Iron Throne. There's some suggestion Tyrion is Daenerys's elder brother or uncle, and with Sansa's lineage they'd have the best claim, more so I think than Jon and Daenerys (who I think are now related).

Oh and apparently it took 11 or 12 weeks of night filming to make that one episode so I'm not convinced they were cost-cutting.

[asteclaru]

It’s a series with Dragons, magic, rising from the dead, Zombies and people think it was unrealistic that the good guys didn’t die.
I just suspend reality in films and just enjoy the ride.
GoT is such a decisive series but for me I’m loving it

But GoT was pretty much the only thing on TV where it didn't matter whether you were a main character or merely a recurring one: if you got in trouble, you had a very high chance of getting killed.

This episode was the first one where the main characters were 'spared'. By the third one that got saved at the last minute I lost interest because it lost the only thing that made GoT truly special.

It was the first episode that made me actually not care whether the show continues or not: I'll still watch the last 3 episodes when they come out, but I'm not eagerly awaiting them.

[asteclaru]

Oh and apparently it took 11 or 12 weeks of night filming to make that one episode so I'm not convinced they were cost-cutting.

They may have filmed the scenes involving actual actors, but you still have to model/animate/render the huge armies of undead, Dothraki, Unsullied, dragons etc which takes a lot of time. I still think that it was a cost cutting measure to have everything so dark.

[wildheart]

Surprised that so many above did not enjoy the battle. I thought it was fantastic one of the best hours TV I have seen in years. Obviously there is another battle brewing, where many of our favorites (that survived the Night King) will probably demise. Great viewing, can't wait for the next episode superb!

[wildheart]

Eh?

You have got to be kidding. It was superb tv and I was absolutely riveted. Bit dark? Maybe,but I didn't actually mind as I thought it added to the whole feeling of confusion surrounding the battle.
God knows how they top that for the rest of the series.
Go Arya!

Totally agree!

[JasonM]

Surprised that so many above did not enjoy the battle. I thought it was fantastic one of the best hours TV I have seen in years. Obviously there is another battle brewing, where many of our favorites (that survived the Night King) will probably demise. Great viewing, can't wait for the next episode superb!

I’m not sure there is enough of them left to have another pitched battle, my money is a surgical strike against Cersi, possibly by either of her brothers, mind you, Arya will want to be the one to get her too.

[kace]

Surprised that so many above did not enjoy the battle. I thought it was fantastic one of the best hours TV I have seen in years. Obviously there is another battle brewing, where many of our favorites (that survived the Night King) will probably demise. Great viewing, can't wait for the next episode superb!

I enjoyed the battle, the 80 odd minutes passed quickly but I thought the writing was weak. Just didn't have the feel of thrones from earlier series.

20k dothraki killed in moments... Jamie and the gang hold off a hoarde with their backs to the wall...while doors are opened by the weight of numbers elsewhere.

I know I overthink things and tend to spoil it for myself but it just seemed a bit meh.

[Robti]

Thought that at the end Arya was Bran in disguise, and as the NK walked up to him and she would jump up and kill him then pull the mask off as she did earlier in the series

[Wooster]

It's been a while since I've been so obsessed with a song as I'm with Jenny of Oldstones

[Mr.D]

They may have filmed the scenes involving actual actors, but you still have to model/animate/render the huge armies of undead, Dothraki, Unsullied, dragons etc which takes a lot of time. I still think that it was a cost cutting measure to have everything so dark.

Doesn’t make the vfx work any easier , in fact shooting it that dark makes it more difficult not less.

[kevkojak]

I can't help thinking we are going to have a lot of "one on one" battles in the next few episodes.

In-fighting between Jon and Dany *maybe* to see who commands the remaining army against Kings Landing.

Jaime against Cersei - or perhaps Brienne against Cersei in Jaime's honour.

Tyrion against Bronn?? Hope not, but it strikes me it'll happen unless Bronn has grown some honour. Cersei basically promised him his own castle in the sky for topping her brother. On one hand, he's been shafted by the Lannisters before so might yet turn against her. On the other hand, he's a mercenary for hire - There was one great scene with Tyrion a few seasons back where Tyrion asked speculatively if he could murder a child, no questions asked. "No questions asked??" says Bronn, "Absolutely not! I'd ask how much".

The Mountain against.... Hmmmm, The Hound seems like the fight the fans want, but last season when they came face to face The Hound told his brother he felt sorry for him and ended with "You know who's coming for you...". Was he referencing Aria?

Yara (?) against her uncle or cousin or whatever relation the chap who is knocking boots with queen Cersei.


Hopefully it's not all done on a busy battlefield, we need a little bit of quiet time with some of these lot. The smaller personal feuds have been bubbling for too long for them to just have one side win and one side lose.

[Jardine32]

I've been a fan of both the books and the show for years, one of the things that got me hooked was that no character could ever be deemed truely safe. Look at the deaths of Ned Stark, Tywin Lannister or the Red Wedding as proof of this or Oberyn Martell who managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory against The Mountain.
Once the show overtook the books more and more TV tropes started to slip in. Far too many characters now seem to have the thickest of plot armour. As event TV I thought the episode was excellent, it captured the chaos and the terror of facing the army of the dead and it will be hard to capture the scale of something like that again.
But the writing was lazy, after having spent the previous episode building up the tension and the expectation that key characters would die it just seemed a bit of a cop out that so many survived. Ser Jamie, Ser Brienne and Pod would have been overwhelmed by the numbers they faced, Sam wouldn't have lasted and the people in the crypt should have been annihilated as the dead Starks came for them, they were unarmed and trapped underground after all.
J

[asteclaru]

Doesn’t make the vfx work any easier , in fact shooting it that dark makes it more difficult not less.

How so? I much prefer making night/dark scenes as you can get away with modelling a lot less detail than you would need to show in a day scene.

But, as I said, I don't have experience of working at that level (just regular architectural visualisation), so I stand to be corrected by someone that actually knows what they're talking about.

[Mr.D]

How so? I much prefer making night/dark scenes as you can get away with modelling a lot less detail than you would need to show in a day scene.

But, as I said, I don't have experience of working at that level (just regular architectural visualisation), so I stand to be corrected by someone that actually knows what they're talking about.

You have to matchmove the live action first : Solving camera and geometry with dark material means that you probably have to do a lot of manual intervention and grooming as the auto tracking will lose lock . You can track anything eventually but it means a lot more time and a lot more hands on.

Similarly matching lighting is tricky . You’ll never know quite what they will do on a shot to shot basis in the DI . They may grade it up and reveal detail , they may grade it down regardless the cgi usually needs to hold up to the same latitude as the original camera footage.

Judging the lighting match and the match grade in compositing becomes trickier when things are indistinct. In my experience it become a much more subjective judgement to get past the director.

Even simple tasks like roto and cleanup become more difficult : you have to be able to see it to roto it.


Knowing that you’ve got the cgi aligned correctly to the plate when you can’t see it clearly becomes a bit trial and error , especially problematic if you are rendering crowd work which are time consuming to simulate even if you render simpler looking proxy versions.

Getting the staging to work on the full cgi shots when everything is so dark on the live action becomes a bit more cartoonish to get the information to register with the audience: those crow shots looked a bit cartoony and contrived rather than like real cinematography.

[asteclaru]

You have to matchmove the live action first : Solving camera and geometry with dark material means that you probably have to do a lot of manual intervention and grooming as the auto tracking will lose lock . You can track anything eventually but it means a lot more time and a lot more hands on.

Similarly matching lighting is tricky . You’ll never know quite what they will do on a shot to shot basis in the DI . They may grade it up and reveal detail , they may grade it down regardless the cgi usually needs to hold up to the same latitude as the original camera footage.

Judging the lighting match and the match grade in compositing becomes trickier when things are indistinct. In my experience it become a much more subjective judgement to get past the director.

Even simple tasks like roto and cleanup become more difficult : you have to be able to see it to roto it.


Knowing that you’ve got the cgi aligned correctly to the plate when you can’t see it clearly becomes a bit trial and error , especially problematic if you are rendering crowd work which are time consuming to simulate even if you render simpler looking proxy versions.

Getting the staging to work on the full cgi shots when everything is so dark on the live action becomes a bit more cartoonish to get the information to register with the audience: those crow shots looked a bit cartoony and contrived rather than like real cinematography.

I see; and it makes sense. Thanks for your explanation.

[watchcollector1]

Stephen Kelly from the BBC sums it up well.

"The direction and cutting makes events frenzied, scrappy and yes, due to the lack of lighting, difficult to follow – a clever visual articulation of how this fight would really feel. This is an admirable artistic choice in theory, but after a while it starts to translate as tiresome, incomprehensible noise."

[village]

I’m not sure there is enough of them left to have another pitched battle, my money is a surgical strike against Cersi, possibly by either of her brothers, mind you, Arya will want to be the one to get her too.

My money is on Arya killing Cersi.....the Red Woman's prophecy had her killing eyes of brown,blue and green and that leads to Cersi. Plus she is on her hit list!

There has got to be a Hound vs Mountain face off.....I'd say The Hound kills his brother but also dies.

Who sits on the Iron Throne at the end? So many possibilities and I haven't really got a clue.

[rincewind]

My predictions for what they are worth:

Dany dies @ or nearing Kings Landing. Betrayed by Tyrion.
Tyrion executed by dragon fire for said betrayal.
Arya kills Cersei
Bron is barely seen again
Jaime and Brienne live happily ever after
John gives up his chance for the throne and returns north to rebuild the wall. This time to keep men and the children of the forest separated. Becomes lord commander again.
Sansa returns to Winterfell
Bran retires to live in a tree with the children of the forest
Arya and Gendry sit on the throne

[Essexstu]

Great episode only let down by the quick death of the night king and his generals. 8 seasons of build up for a death that fast?

[jaytip]

Lots of people complaining about the quick death of the white king, but everyone knows valerian steel will kill him. It’s not like he can recover from a stab wound or keep going after being stabbed ala Jora. Once stabbed he shatters.

[Glamdring]

Great episode only let down by the quick death of the night king and his generals. 8 seasons of build up for a death that fast?

But it wasn't just his death, but the manner of it. Little [no spoiler], who did the deed, while almost dying too.

[Phil Lee]

Sky have re-encoded the on demand version to give better picture quality.

https://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Enterta...ht/true#M87979

[zanderpants]

I watched the on demand version and changed the picture setting on my TV to ‘movie’ and the picture was really good.


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[Stuno1]

Great episode only let down by the quick death of the night king and his generals. 8 seasons of build up for a death that fast?

That was my take as well. Also the army was wiped out! Nothing to take to another fight at all.

[trott3r]

Mixed feelings about this episode with the awful tactics by the living grating for a whle that i had to have a word with myself to stop picking holes and try to enjoy the ride.
It was very hollywood and probably reflects the way the show has been going since it has run beyond the books.
Leading me to be grateful that its coming to an end before it jumps the shark.

Thigns got better with arya and her quarterstaff/spear work on the wall.
The scene in the library was quite a good change of pace were she avoided rather than killed to stop making any noise.

The killing of the NK was good with the dropped dagger move but as others have pointed out how did she get so close and leap so high?

I wonder if bran's raven scouting will have some effect in later episodes as so far he seems like a philosopher rather than a doer.

[kace]

Lots of people complaining about the quick death of the white king, but everyone knows valerian steel will kill him. It’s not like he can recover from a stab wound or keep going after being stabbed ala Jora. Once stabbed he shatters.

Bet he regretted that crop top armour.



Blimey if sky have redone the download version which was the one I watched how dark was the broadcast one?

[ViperStripes]

The download has changed from 5Gb to 8.5Gb!

Haven't watched the newer version yet. But it was tough to force it to redownload. Even deleting it didn't work, need to go to planner then deleted items and permanently delete to enable it to redownload.

I thought the dark and stripy was my old TV not coping with blacks very well. Will definitely be watching the new download to compare.

[crazyp]

Well finally managed to watch the episode. My thoughts -

1. Pic quality - I understand the complaints. Stylistically it worked but would have loved to have seen this episode in the cinema!

2. The Night Kings death - the issue is not the Night King but Bran. His arc as the three eyed raven was kinda abandoned in the series and that makes the cause of the White Walkers all a bit meh. This was therefore the best outcome I think.

3. Remember - this series is called ‘game of thrones’ it was always something that would come down to the living. Even in the face of terrible evil, humans will still squabble over their own materialistic wants.

4. The deaths - the lack of shock factor with who dies has become a bit predictable. I see the coincidence comes when the show runners ran out of book. Also a factor of how complicated the books got and they needed simplifying (and a reason why the WoW is not finished - it’s too vast).

5. The Women - after watching End Game it pleases me how bad ass the women are in GoT. The treatment of the leading ladies inEnd Game was pathetic. More a ‘pat Marvel on the shoulder’ for including women. GoT is a great example of how women characters should be.

These are initial thiughts, will put some more when I’ve dwelt on this further.

[Wooster]

Regarding point 4. There's a bit of rumour going on these days that he finally finished WoW. Something along the lines of 'his writing calendar finally freed up'. Maybe though he just gave up completely on finishing it :)

[Phil Lee]

Well finally managed to watch the episode. My thoughts -

1. Pic quality - I understand the complaints. Stylistically it worked but would have loved to have seen this episode in the cinema!

The problem I had with the picture quality wasn’t that it was dark, it was the horrendous banding and compression artefacts in it. I actually stopped 10 minutes in to swap from the recorded broadcast to the original download version to see if it was any better. It’s crazy to think that Sky can broadcast F1 live in UltraHD with its superb picture quality yet a pre-recorded TV program is of such bad quality.

[NikGixer750]

The problem I had with the picture quality wasn’t that it was dark, it was the horrendous banding and compression artefacts in it. I actually stopped 10 minutes in to swap from the recorded broadcast to the original download version to see if it was any better. It’s crazy to think that Sky can broadcast F1 live in UltraHD with its superb picture quality yet a pre-recorded TV program is of such bad quality.

It has surprised me that none of GOT is broadcast in UHD, they have up scaled so many shows now to UHD you would think for something like GOT it would 100% be done.

[The Hack]

Agreed! I'm amazed so many seem to think it was fantastic. It's just not GOT anymore and loads of illogical scenes/ plot points.

No one important died (despite being swamped by white-walkers at points). How the hell is Samwell still alive?
The dragons (and Jon/Dany) had 'bit parts'.
Bran 'The Three-eyed Raven' did bugger all.
Key characters conveniently rescued at the last minute.
Night King died all too easily, with Arya appearing out of nowhere.
Why were most of the soldiers fighting with conventional weapons instead of dragon glass?

The crap picture quality was the icing on the cake! :(

Thought it was really really bland.

No main guys killed off and just all a bit Hollywood ending.


What was the point in the NK ???

It's gone downhill massively in my opinion, lost the spark that made it.

[jaytip]

Regarding point 4. There's a bit of rumour going on these days that he finally finished WoW. Something along the lines of 'his writing calendar finally freed up'. Maybe though he just gave up completely on finishing it :)

What is WoW?

[BadgerUK]

The Good

1. The musical score.
2. Melisandre's scenes.
3. Jora's last stand protecting the Queen.
4. Theon's last stand protecting Bran.

The Bad

1. Picture quality and too many scenes far too dark.
2. Battle tactics utterly stupid, so stupid the whole episode lost credibility.
Why sacrifice your cavalry, they should have been wide right and wide left, kept in reserve to swoop in behind the enemy front line attacking them from the side and behind. They should used the dragons to scorch no mans land and then used the trebuchets to pound the advancing wights. Why advance anybody, why give up good defensive positions ?
3. Jon Snow was a total @uckwit, showing no leadership.
4. Death of the Night King, so 'unrealistic', the battle should have ended a draw with a rematch at Kings Landing.
5. Far too much feminist equality type b@llocks in the fight scenes.
6. Continuity all over the place - how did the Morment girl's axe magically turn into a dagger/sword ?
7. Why were the trebuchets in front of the Unsullied ?

The Director completely blew it, all this time we waited for a so/so dumbed down 5 out of 10 episode.

[Wooster]

What is WoW?

Winds of winter, the 6th novel.

[crazyp]

Regarding point 4. There's a bit of rumour going on these days that he finally finished WoW. Something along the lines of 'his writing calendar finally freed up'. Maybe though he just gave up completely on finishing it :)

He better get started on book 7 (A Dream of Spring) ASAP then!

[John Wall]

I’ve watched the upscaled SKY download this afternoon.
Definitely better than the broadcast version, but only in parts.
Close action has been upgraded but “big” shots still stripey, dark and lacking definition.
As mentioned I had to completely delete recorded episode before it would download.
“Space required” originally said 8.5g but when downloading started it immediately fell to 3.95g (?)
Is SKY Q any better picture?

[kevkojak]

One of the cinematographers in the paper today moaning that despite spending thousands on equipment, the public don't know how to set it up correctly, it was shot and edited perfectly. Never mind that this is the first thing they've complained about the quality on, eh?

Suggestion was to watch it in a darkened room (which is what we had to do, I still have a headache now.)

I was on the side of the cast and crew before reading that interview but I've changed my mind now, prick.

[ryanb741]

Supporters of the Night King have claimed his death was unrealistic and have pointed out many inconsistencies with the chain of events that led to his death. I believe a request is going to be made for a Referendum where the people can decide his fate.

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[Phil Lee]

I was on the side of the cast and crew before reading that interview but I've changed my mind now, prick.

It’s not the cast and crew who control picture quality. Each individual provider compresses the programme master to suit their bandwidth requirements. Having done some Googling the suggestion is that Amazon compress the program the least. The reprocessing by Sky shows that the options they choose has an impact on how the program appears.

[Lampoc]

Supporters of the Night King have claimed his death was unrealistic and have pointed out many inconsistencies with the chain of events that led to his death. I believe a request is going to be made for a Referendum where the people can decide his fate.

Will there be calls for a second referendum if 48% of the voters don't like the result ;)

[burnside]

https://www.joe.co.uk/entertainment/...terfell-229662

[kace]

Why were most of the soldiers fighting with conventional weapons instead of dragon glass?

The reanimated dead can be killed again with normal weapons, its the white walkers who require dragon glass. At the end some of the advancing army shattered like the nk and the zombies just fell.