Honestly, what do you think about Season 8? Mod warning post #1/#410

RiCriostoir

I've seen a lot of complaints about it on Facebook, Twitter and Reddit. But personally I don't see anything wrong with Season 8, and feel as if the directors are doing a good job on it. It does feel a small bit rushed but the CGI is amazing.

What do yous think?

Mod:
While feelings are high atm do remain civil and don't attack the poster. This is approaching the siege of Winterfell episode in emotions and I don't want to have to lock the thread.

North of 32

It's spectacular television - outstanding set pieces, incredible SFX, great directing, great music, great editing.

The writing is dreadful.

I'm not going to watch the last episode..

coolisin

It was always going to be a little disappointment to a degree with the ending no one was going to be 100% happy, as everyone over two years has been writing their own stories with their friends.

But I personally am really enjoying it. I like where they have gone with Dani, was always going to happen.
A little rushed, but I am entertained and looking forward to each episode.

Looking forward to sitting down and watching season 8 in full flow with no episode breaks as it feels like its properly a constant film style narrative now.

TerrorFirmer

Great spectacle and it has its moments, but the writing is very sloppy and lazy far too often.....and overall, it's far too rushed.

Still good TV but they were well capable of significantly better.

pinkypinky

Honestly, it's a let down, and largely because the story feels too rushed.

Dany going mad would be fine if it had more of a build up.
Embarrassing continuity errors abound.
First the dragons are invincible, then the scorpions are great, then they're not.
Non-satisfactory or pointless deaths of many beloved and love-to-hate characters.

brevity

It’s very rushed.

Brian?

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I'm not going to watch the last episode..

I gave up half way through episode 5. 8 years of character development binned to make a spectacular battle.

is_that_so

North of 32 wrote: »

It's spectacular television - outstanding set pieces, incredible SFX, great directing, great music, great editing.

The writing is dreadful.

Well, I don't know about all the editing in Episode 5.

threein99

Meh

Brian?

Brian? wrote: »

I gave up half way through episode 5. 8 years of character development binned to make a spectacular battle.

Yeah.. Jesus.. like, I don't care at this stage.. And it's just been so bad. Fnck it..I'm just not going to bother..
It's a disgrace..

brevity

It’s not that bad. It’s a bit disappointing in parts but to give up at the very end seems a bit silly imo.

eagle eye

I don't think it's fair to make an assessment until it's done.
We might look back and say 'ah yes' or we might be disappointed. Either way I don't think it's fair to critique just yet.
Gotta say I have felt since it began that Arya is the central character.

lawlolawl

It's a rather hollow experience so far.

Marvel's Game of Thrones.

brevity

brevity wrote: »

It’s not that bad. It’s a bit disappointing in parts but to give up at the very end seems a bit silly imo.

To watch an hour of bad television to see how the story that has been ruined finishes?..
F*ck it..I'm sure I'll be told..

Like, the last episode was like an 80s B-movie at times..

The_Honeybadger

It’s entertaining but quite different in pace to previous seasons. Storylines that have been carefully built up over several years / seasons are rushing to a conclusion, it all feels very hurried. They really could have done with one more season to wrap it up properly.

That said it is still one of my favourite shows ever and I will be sad to see it finish up next week. No doubt there will a plethora of prequels and spin offs but it’s doubtful that any will hold a candle to the original. It really has been eight seasons of absolutely spectacularly good television.

Sonics2k

I think it's unfair and off to say the writing is awful. The writing is not as good as previous seasons of the show, but a whole lot better than many other shows I've seen.

Overall, I think it's been fantastic TV. But rushed. Far, far too rushed. 10 episodes would have given them a lot more breathing room to go over plot points.

is_that_so

Well, there's the rushing and the teleporting and the lack of light and bad dialogue and absurd plotting (dragon/scorpions - twice ) and a whole rash of sudden personality reversals and previously important characters just standing looking at each other. That said I liked episode 2 for its tension!

PressRun

There's been some great cinematography and artistry on display, and some good moments here and there, but it has been let down by the writing. Feels like the season has been built around set pieces and big 'moments', and the writers have been a bit careless in how they actually get us to those moments and have been a bit throwaway with the internal logic of the show, so a lot of it has ended up feeling a bit hollow or unearned.
I don't like coming out of an episode thinking about all the different ways in which certain things could have been better executed or feeling like certain payoffs didn't really hit home like they should have, but unfortunately that's how I've felt about the episodes this season.

They had the option to flesh out the ending and spread it out over more episodes, but they chose not to. This is the result of wanting it over quickly, I guess.

Mr Tickle

brevity wrote: »

It’s very rushed.

Excellent complaint for someone with your user name :pac:

This used be a show you watched for the story telling. Now they're just going for spectacle.
they've gone from Breaking Bad to Transformers

bumders

Awful just awful. The whole show was excellent except for this season.

Is Danerys on her period or something?

Cersis death was just crap, too many conincedences as well

Dwarf.Shortage

bumders wrote: »

Awful just awful. The whole show was excellent except for this season.

Is Danerys on her period or something?

Cersis death was just crap, too many conincedences as well

Are you 12 or something?

The White Wolf

Can't fault the show technically or how it's been acted; the cast still tries to give it their all in spite of baffling decisions on where to take the plot over the last 3 seasons.

Ultimately Season 8 has been a downer for me, even worse are the Muppets who will patronisingly share that Ramsay quote about not paying attention if you think this has a happy ending.

Sleepy

Honestly, I'm gutted and incredibly pissed off at Benioff and Weiss. I've been invested in A Song of Ice and Fire for over a decade. I was one of the sad sacks that turned up to a midnight release of A Dance with Dragons and took holidays from work to read it the next day.

I was thrilled when HBO announced they were going to make it into a series and that GRRM was involved (he even wrote a few episodes in early seasons). I've probably watched the first season 5 or 6 times at this stage (doing re-watches before each season came out)

The quality of the writing has been on a downward curve since Season 5 and, at first, I accepted a lot of the short-cuts seeing them as the necessary evils required to bring a story written to be unfilmable to the screen (ASOIAF was, after all, literally born out of GRRM's frustration with show-runners telling him the budget couldn't stretch to the scale of his first drafts of episodes he was writing for their shows). The plummet in the quality of writing when the show is at it's most successful, and when HBO were only too happy to fund a few extra seasons is galling though.

Benioff & Weiss had the Star Wars trilogy dangled in front of them and abandoned the show that should have been their masterpiece. Instead of doing the decent thing and handing it over to new show-runners who would take the time to conclude it properly, they decided to give us the cliff notes version of the story's ending, forgot all sense of internal consistency and ruined it. They were perfectly capable of finishing this series well. They chose not to and I'll never forgive them for it.

Edit: I honestly feel sorriest for the Cast and Crew. They've done stirling work and the show looks amazing. It's become style over substance.

I would have given up on it if this was it's first season

brevity

The story is winding down, there isn’t really anymore scheming that can be done (Varys’ betrayal could have been fleshed out a bit better though). Certain big things have to happen. It’s shocking that Dani burnt thousands of people but it’s not too unbelievable considering her history and what has happened. Jamie returning to Cersi is disappointing but not terribly surprising considering he loves her.
All this stuff has been built up over the seasons. Yes it’s rushed and perhaps executed poorly but it has to come to an end

maximoose

The plot itself I don't have many problems with it's just the jarring pace and lack of set up that leaves the whole thing pretty flat and hollow after the entertainment of the visuals wears off. Awful writing being poorly executed and character motivations and arcs being thrown to the side.

HBO wanted 10 eps and were happy to throw money at it, it seems D&D wanted to move on and it's a damn shame the show is ending this way.

jebidiah

I'm honestly not surprised that it is so badly written. I've felt in my gut for a while that D&D are just not interested in it taking up more or their time. Their writing isn't up to snuff and shame on HBO for not sacking them and bringing in better writers. I suppose they've made their money though so who cares, spin offs r us.

Everything else on the show is being let down by honestly god awful writing and continuity. It's a shame. I hope George doesn't leave us with this as the end to his story and I hope he has something ready to release.

That said, I left my expectations for this show to be good way way back in season 6. So I am watching the episodes purely for the spectacle now, and episode 5 did not disappoint. I was blown away by 99% of it. Dany flipping and the white horse aside it was unreal from start to finish.

Peatys

It feels like two completely different sets of people made the first 4 series to the second 4.

First is a world of epic proportions with naunced history spanning thousands of years, lately just feels like an extended action flick.

Still good in its own right, but not a patch on how the show was a few years ago.

Penn

I'm still mostly hugely enjoying it. There are definitely some valid complaints, and a few more episodes to make some of the decisions the characters are making would have helped them feel a lot more organic would have made a world of difference. But overall I think unless something completely stupid happens in the final episode, this season's dip in quality won't tarnish the show as a whole and will still be worth a rewatch in a few years.

Stone Deaf 4evr

jebidiah wrote: »

I'm honestly not surprised that it is so badly written. I've felt in my gut for a while that D&D are just not interested in it taking up more or their time. Their writing isn't up to snuff and shame on HBO for not sacking them and bringing in better writers. I suppose they've made their money though so who cares, spin offs r us.

Everything else on the show is being let down by honestly god awful writing and continuity. It's a shame. I hope George doesn't leave us with this as the end to his story and I hope he has something ready to release.

That said, I left my expectations for this show to be good way way back in season 6. So I am watching the episodes purely for the spectacle now, and episode 5 did not disappoint. I was blown away by 99% of it. Dany flipping and the white horse aside it was unreal from start to finish.

Id have no issue if GRRM were to end the story in the same way (as in the same people die in the same way), the fact that it'd be in book form would just hopefully allow it to be told a bit more coherently.
I do admit, that I imagined a different end myself, I had thought that the war with the white walkers would have ravaged the entire world, with a last stand scenario happening at Kings Landing. I had figured the likes of Cersei etc would have been killed off due to scheming against her allies while that war waged. Going by the shows depiction, the white walkers were almost a complete non issue for anyone living anywhere that isn't winterfell.

I'd have hoped that the books would contain seiges like the white walkers vs the Eerie, or even the crossing of riverrun, but nope, that all survived unscathed.

valoren

Peatys wrote: »

It feels like two completely different sets of people made the first 4 series to the second 4.

First is a world of epic proportions with naunced history spanning thousands of years, lately just feels like an extended action flick.

Still good in its own right, but not a patch on how the show was a few years ago.

When the tide goes out (i.e. you run out of GRRM material to adapt) you realise they have been swimming naked (i.e. the marked decline in the writing highlights how mediocre D&D are as writers to create original content).

Twenty Grand

lawlolawl wrote: »

It's a rather hollow experience so far.

Marvel's Game of Thrones.

I'd agree with hollow.
I wouldn't agree with Marvel.

They got to the end of season 6 based on the books and GRRMs notes.

Once S7 hit then had the cruel task of finishing a story that had meandered all over the place. Few of the characters were anywhere near where they should be, in both character development and geography, so everything has been rushed and compressed.

All nuance, pacing, character development etc has been chucked to get to a finale, slashing and burning to get characters where they need to be, in the state they need to be in.

Definitely needed another 10 episode season.

Greyfox

Sleepy wrote: »

Benioff & Weiss had the Star Wars trilogy dangled in front of them and abandoned the show that should have been their masterpiece. Instead of doing the decent thing and handing it over to new show-runners who would take the time to conclude it properly

For me GOT is still the best TV show ever made. S5, S7 and S8 are not quite as good as the other seasons, like everyone else I agree the pacing in the last too seasons was too fast but I've still enjoyed EVERY episode of GOT, something good has happened in every episode. It's strange but after I accept they fecked up by shortening the last 2 seasons it comes down to every time I feel its going too fast its a case of saying to myself well they kinda have too move too fast as they have so much to cram in now

loyatemu

Season 7 was ropey as well and a lot of the pacing issues were caused by the desperately slow pace of seasons 5 and 6.

I'm still enjoying it, but in a "leave your brain at the door" kind of way. I laughed at a few of the scenes this week, including the supposedly emotional farewells between Jaime/Tyrion and Hound/Arya.

Vegeta

North of 32 wrote: »

It's spectacular television - outstanding set pieces, incredible SFX, great directing, great music, great editing.

The writing is dreadful.

Mirrors my own thoughts exactly. I am enjoying it, but my expectations are high and the writing is sub par based on previous seasons.

mewso

Great spectacle but ultimately very dissappointing. I've felt like the quality has been sliding for quite some time but it is all coming home to roost in the final season.

It feels to me that D & D have tried to get to the same place that perhaps GRRM indicated he would be going but the seeds of all the problems were probably sown in earlier seasons when changes they made didn't hurt things then as much as they do now. Some examples.

Tyrion - they made some significant changes to his arc around the time of his trial in season 4 where they decided Shae was a woman scorned and some home truths Jaime passed on to him in the books were omitted. All of this may lead, in the books, to better explanations for where he ends up. Instead we get a character making more and more mistakes completely out of the blue.

Arya - I suspect the books might have substantially more in the training department than the TV shows sections of her getting hit on the head by a staff and stabbed in the belly meaning we might more readily accept her supergirl status.

Petyr Baelish - everything he did after Joffrey's wedding made no sense but again in the books it did and probably would continue to. One of either Varys or the Spider should have come out the other end of the game of thrones imo but Baelish's story was complete nonsense in the show.

satguy

Six episodes was always going to be too short.

Cleganebowl should have gotten an episode all to itself, a big lead in,, an even bigger fight with out in the open for all to see. (with a twist maybe)
Cersei's death should have also gotten its own episode, The missed a big opportunity there.

I could go on, Varys and his ending might have been fleshed out more.

All in All,, they might have done better with two more episodes.

johnnyskeleton

Much like pizza, even when its bad its still pretty good. I really liked episodes 2 & 5. I thought 3 & 4 werent great. First episode was ok.

Also agree with the views about it being rushed, pacing being bad, poor plot decisions etc. But it is what it is and Id rather the end of the tv series was ruined by a rush job than the books being spoiled (subject of course to the books ever being finished)

johnnyskeleton

Arya - I suspect the books might have substantially more in the training department than the TV shows sections of her getting hit on the head by a staff and stabbed in the belly meaning we might more readily accept her supergirl status.

I suspect/hope it will be the opposite and she wont be a superhero with ninja skills and will just be a sneaky face changing assassin and morally ambiguous.

The high horse brigade

It's gone seriously downhill since they ran out of book

ricero

The fact we are even discussing this shows me how much of a flop this season has been. Disappointing after a 2 year wait.

Brian?

This season of the show has ruined a story I've been following for 23 years. Almost a quarter of a century and it's put to bed in shockingly poor fashion.

Dany goes mad. The Night King was just a big bad guy. Tyrion is now an idiot. Arya is a super ninja.

Disappointing doesn't sum it up. I doubt l buy the books if they're ever released.

J. Marston

Rushed because the showrunners heads were turned by the Star Wars trilogy and they wanted to finish this up as fast they possibly could.

Season 7 and 8 could have been a slower build to the showdown with the Night King and and finish off the story with season 9 as the battle for the throne and a more drawn out descent of Dany.

MisterAnarchy

J. Marston wrote: »

Rushed because the showrunners heads were turned by the Star Wars trilogy and they wanted to finish this up as fast they possibly could.

I think the original distraction was Confederacy ,which has now been shelved.
Good article here
http://www.pajiba.com/tv_reviews/what-were-weiss-and-benioff-thinking-while-writing-the-final-season-of-game-of-thrones.php

volchitsa

I'm finding it underwhelming, but part of that is because so much of the past seasons have been such amazing story telling. It's still good, but in a "competent writers with loads of money to spend" way. Loads of other series are as good if not better. Some of the lines made me laugh, the sporty sort of hangs together but it's just not what made GOT such an experience in the past.

Many of my criticisms have already been made here, but one that hasn't (I think) and that I don't get at all is the p1ss-poor writing of battle scenes. Well, Winterfell anyway (I'm away this week and have been instructed to wait till we're all home this weekend to watch the latest episode so I can't say anything about the battle for KL. V dubious about Daenerys just forgetting about the Iron fleet mind.)

But back to the Battle of Winterfell. It was spectacular, absolutely, but it had so much wrong with it. Unforgivable, with that budget. Why didn't they get a proper military adviser in, it's not like they couldn't afford one?

For instance, why would you start off by sacrificing your cavalry in the open field against a superior number when you've got the castle as defence? The Dothraki went so far out that the catapults were no use as cover - and then the trenches? Flaming trenches, great - but shouldn't you put them far enough away to keep your own forces inside them, and use the narrow passages to pick off your enemy as they come through? Instead of having them act as a bottleneck allowing your own troops to be killed by the enemy as they try and fail to retreat to the castle?

I'm no expert, but this is not even very complicated stuff, wasn't there a film about Ancient Greeks managing a lot better than that a long time ago?

Oh and why didn't Bran warg to find out what the Dead were up to and where they were? Instead of sitting out in the wood waiting listlessly?

Thing is, they could have had a proper battle plan, and still, with the superior numbers of the Dead and their powers and so on it could still have been thrillingly close. Instead it stretched credibility. And that's the problem with the writing. It's effective as a spectacle, but it's not worthy of Game of Thrones.

That said, the non battle episodes have been better IMO, and I'll still watch to the end, but yeah, I'm disappointed with what they've failed to deliver so far.

loyatemu

satguy wrote: »

Cleganebowl should have gotten an episode all to itself,

ugh, I really didn't care much about Cleganebowl - the rivalry between them was never properly fleshed out in the TV series (maybe it's different in the books), and what was covered was like 5 seasons ago.

Since the 2 brothers were "resurrected" from their respective deaths they've had very little to do and have only been kept around for their eventual clash.

osarusan

Failing to meet the standards it set for itself in earlier seasons. Still very good at times, but has sacrificed story, consistency, depth, and even logic for spectacle a bit too often.

Xcellor

Not impressed. I was expecting a twist but it played out in the most obvious fashion...

Not good enough by a long shot.

brendanwalsh

HBO should have relieved the producers adnnd got a replacement who would take it to ten season.

You could have one season for the long night,
One season for the battle of king landing and one season a battle between Danny and Jon.

So many of those characters deserved better send offs.

Jamie Lannister death deserved a better send off and it's own episode
Same for cersei
Same for the hound

None of the cast or grrm seem happy with the ending or the final two seasons.
These lads butchered one of the greatest tv shows ever produced

Mr. Incognito

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-radio-web/game-of-thrones-has-descended-into-bumbling-spectacle-and-senseless-plots-1.3892012?mode=amp

They have ruined the show.

People not just suddenly totally acting out of character but actually doing a full 180.

Tyrion Smart to Idiot.
Baelish. Cunning to coward.
Varys. Whisperer to blabberer.
Jamie. Noble to Callous.
John. Dead to Alive to do what? Win staring contests.
Arya. Faceless Superwoman who suddenly gives up for no reason.
Dragons. Powerful to weak to powerful.
Night King. Seriously. I mean wtf. Poof. Its wizard of oz ****. Im melting....
Dany. Breaker of chains to mass murderer.
Bronn. Nada
Bran. Nada. Totally ignored.

No character or plot to go from A to Z

Acting good. Cinematography. Excellent.

You dont need budget and bang when the story and writing is good.

When it is rubbish as it has been then they dont add any gloss.

Im disappointed. I dont care what happens any more