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

Disappointing cookie cutter marvelesque crap

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

I was reading some article on Facebook yesterday about one of the episodes, and the top liked comment was basically "this season is the best by far, so epic, so much improved compared to that turgid, soap opera crap in the earlier seasons".

Different strokes for different folks. If people had not embraced the "crap soap opera" in such large numbers it might not have lasted long enough to be " so epic".

The most ridiculous thing of all is 370,000 people have signed a petition to have season 8 remade.

Sorry world, its sh1t and its gonna stay sh1t.

is_that_so wrote: »

Some people are over-invested in it!

I suppose it's testament to how great modern life is for a lot of people , fantasy is very appealing.

Sleepy wrote: »

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 echo this in its entirety.

Season 8 has literally been cliff notes of what the end of the story was supposed to be.

I better see a wolf in the last ****ing episode.

Seanachai wrote: »

I suppose it's testament to how great modern life is for a lot of people , fantasy is very appealing.

I think it's more a case of finding a whole lot of people who think like me makes feel good about myself. Get out in the light and you'll feel better!

So what have we learned so far?

• They're not actually discussing military strategy around that map, they're just playing with the figures.
• Air support is not needed, send the cavalry in with one round of artillery.
• Sleeping on a big pile of wights will get you through the battle.
• White Walkers will ignore a small girl pole-vaulting towards their king.
• Ice Dragons are powered by butane and produce low powered blue flame.
• You can hide an entire fleet from a dragon air patrol by keeping slightly behind an island.
• Ballistae can fire with high accuracy around corners from said cover.
• Only Drogon can dodge.
• Northmen can march really quickly.
• When Dany finally snaps, she doesn't charge straight at her hated enemy, instead she will spend a good hour roasting innocents.
• Any character who spends time in Danny's company becomes more stupid. Even Tyrion and Varys.
• Don't listen to Arya when you've found a place to hide.

.

Just announced George is finally releasing the the next book.

Apparently he agonized over all 200 pages.

I'll give those signing the petition the benefit of the doubt that they know full well it'll never happen, they're just looking to embarrass Benioff & Weiss

Gulliver wrote: »

What if your favourite team played spectacularly all season, then in the final few games sent out a bunch of guys they found in the street? Would you still enjoy those games?

Don't bring Leeds into this please I'm still tender


(We still had a better season than GoT)

Brock Turnpike wrote: »

You couldn't possibly be that naive???

You seriously think they will actually remake the last season? No. Ain't gonna happen. Logistically it would take 5-6 years. Most of the cast and crew are on to other things already. Put it this way: I will personally pay for it if it does



Anyway, to the OP.

It's not nearly as bad as people are making out. However it was not nearly on a par with Season 1-4.

The problem was the pacing. 6 episodes was always a ridiculous decision and I cannot understand why HBO agreed to it. Surely HBO would have preferred a full 10 episode season or even another season to wrap things up.

Sure, the more "realistic" elements gave way to more fantastical elements this season: Dragons, Ice zombies, Terminator bodybuards etc. But it ALWAYS had been a fantastical series. It's not a period drama. And some people prefer the political machinations of the early seasons (I know I loved them). But, by the last season, everything had to be in place.

The teleportation ability and instant communication seen in season 8 was already a huge problem in season 7.

The unwillingness to kill off main characters before the endgame was also fully apparent in season 7 but obvioulsy came to a head this season. No Red Wedding or Bealor episodes here.
I'm not saying they should have killed off characters simply for shock value but the survival-rate of fan favourites did become crazy and illogical in season 7 and 8.

So, look, it's still fun TV and I'm still looking forward to the last episode but...

the decision to truncate the last season was a huge mistake. A mistake I believe HBO probably regret (But they'll get over it ). And their unwillingness to lose main characters removed any threat.


I mean I've read the books as they came out since book 2. I distinctly remember reading The Red Wedding and being totally shocked (Especially since it happened only 1/2 way through the book).

But, in the last book I never once thought Jon was dead and I didn't believe for a moment that The Hound was dead.

Anyway, tldr: Not as bad as people are making out. It's fun but it has lost its edge and pacing was a SERIOUS issue.

I don't believe their spinoffs will amount to much as, by the time they come out, people will have moved on.

valoren wrote: »

It's like doing a leaving cert exam.

Ideally you allocate equal amounts of time to each question in the 3 hours you have.

Section A and B are worth 40% each and Section C which is mandatory is 20%.
You're teacher was brilliant and you love the subject.

You open the exam paper and section A and B are perfect, exactly what you'd anticipated.
Section C looks dodgy and you're not so sure how to approach answering it.

To make up for the ambiguity of Section C you spend way too much time on section A and B, there's so much you can include in your written answers thanks to the teacher's brilliance, you try to include everything to get maximum marks but in doing so you look at the clock and realise you have 20 minutes for Section C, 20% of the overall marks.

You start to panic and include half ideas, half sentences, just writing furiously to try and make sense of the questions.
In the end you check your paper after the results come out and see that you got 35% for sections A and B but only 5% for a muddled and rushed answer to section C.

You could have gotten an A1 if you managed your time better but you end up with a B1 overall instead.

absolutely nailed it

The petition is nearly up to one million now. I signed it myself even though I realise it will never be made, just wanted to stick it to Benioff and Weiss a bit:-P

I find it hard to believe how bad it has become. From the start of Season 7 onward nothing that happens feels like it has any substance, someone used the word 'hollow' earlier in the thread which I feel is pretty accurate.

Just finished watching the Battle of Winterfell, it begs the question...what was the point of the past 7 seasons? What was the point of the Night King? What was the point of half the characters? Not really bothered watching the last few episodes when there is no real coherence to anything that happens. And thats not to mention the poor writing/dialogue, cringy clinchés and gaping plotholes.

[Deleted User] wrote: »

It's mad to think I couldn't give two ****s who ends up on the throne. I might go back and watch seasons 5, the one that I used to think was the worst of the lot.

I'm on a rewatch. Season 5 is pretty good I think.
Season 6 is really where it begins to go downhill rapidly. The resurrection of Jon Snow is the shark jump moment of the show IMO.