I love discussions when someone just posts a link to someone else's opinion to back up their own opinion.

I read the article regardless.

Again, while i agree it's all very rushed, and as a consequence, yes, the show does lose some of its 'realism' (in a show about dragons and armies of frosty dead soldiers)

- i'll ask how else the show's writers/producers are supposed to wrap up all of the story arcs in the limited amount of screen time left available to them?

Should they have dedicated a whole episode on following Euron his journey back to king's landing after he won his battle and kidnapped the queen of Dorne? No because it's not plot relevant.

Should they dedicate an episode detailing Jons journey from winterfell to his first meeting with Dany? - No because it's not plot relevant.

etc

While the show's pace has changed dramatically (as the article you linked points out) it still makes for fantastic tv - calling it fantastic tv with poor plotting is pointless. Fantastic tv is fantastic tv by definition. Just feels like this is easy/lazy criticism, to point all that out and blame it on a lack of source material.. just because there is a lack of source material.

I pretty much agree with your take on everything.

It's obvious that the show is being rushed. We know why it's being rushed. It's still great. I don't care about the flaws. We had 6 seasons of good development, it's time to pay off all that buildup and wrap up the plot.

Far as I am concerned, s7+8 are basically just one big series finale that happens to last 15 hours.

This post was edited by Kayeto on Aug 19 2017 12:56pm

it's not just the pace, although the show is clearly suffering from that, we went from dialogues like chaos is a ladder/Jaime's bath scene/all dwarves are bastards/you win or you die/etc to shit like "I'm the help, don't eat the help" and general blandness once the source material was finished and it hasn't improved since

don't get me wrong it's still an enjoyable show, just a shame that it's not an amazing show anymore

This post was edited by Condemn on Aug 19 2017 01:40pm

stop being a cunt, if u want a good plot read the fucking book. and yea last book was 6 years ago, and the 6th book is no where to be seem. stop bitching and get over it, u gets to enjoy the ending before hand atleast.

This post was edited by IMCL85 on Aug 19 2017 01:40pm

Very first scene of the season had one of my favorite lines of the entire show though....

In a vacuum, if all other things were equal, you would be correct. But in practical sense, you seem to have misplaced your frame of reference. 'Amazing' is a relative term. By what standard do you label S7 as 'not amazing'? Would you walk through a middle school science fair and say that none of the projects qualify as 'amazing' because none of them are sniffing a Nobel Prize?

When HBO greenlit GoT for S1, the team responsible for making the show was given 10 episodes to adapt a great novel. They were also told that if things went well, they would be given many more future episodes to tell this grand story. This meant they were free to include as much intricacy and development as they wanted because there would be time to pay things off later. The team also assumed (as did every ASOIAF fan in the world) that Winds of Winter would be available by the time their show reached that part of the story.

Fast forward to S7/8 and things have changed dramatically. Their source material is sparse, their screen time is cut and the HBO expects them to have a clear mark for the endpoint of the series. They know exactly how little time they have left in order to make the pieces fit into an ending. Everyone involved with this show has a job. Given this new environment, the people responsible for the show are doing an amazing job.

If someone is unwilling to consider the circumstances under which a show is being created (and instead insists on comparing everything as if it were in a vacuum), then that person might claim The Martian to be a "more amazing" movie than Gone with the Wind. Anyone who did that would be dead wrong, as Gone with the Wind is clearly a much more amazing movie.

This post was edited by Kayeto on Aug 19 2017 03:25pm

What I wonder is why they are in such a crunch now. I mean 7 episode seasons when the show is basically getting its highest viewer count ever is really strange to me.

I wonder that too man

I can only assume it's money... everything is money. As huge and popular as this show is.. production must cost a fucktonne. Guess they just have a budget and deadline obligations they refuse to exceed.

Indeed. For example, there are some parallels between GoT to the Super Bowl:

SB- When a team wins the Super Bowl, everyone who contributed to that success suddenly deserves a pay raise. Your top assistant coaches get offered higher positions with other teams. Your free agent players are now worth more open the open market so you have to pay them more to keep them.
GoT- The main actors have gotten pay raises every new contract. And when a big name actor like Ian Mcshane gets approached for a role, his agent is demanding top dollar for his work because they know this is a high budget enterprise. That may not have been true to the same extent in S1 when it was a relatively unknown entity.

SB- The better ratings the broadcast is projected to get, the more the network can charge for ad spots. It's a direct correlation between popularity and revenue. They can put more budget into the production if it will translate into more revenue.
GoT- The relationship between ratings and profit does not correlate to the same degree. Higher ratings do have an effect on revenue subscription fees and merchandising, but how many people actually stay subbed year round because of GoT? There's a limit to how much they can make. They are a premium channel, not an 'everyman' CBS show. If anything, the strongest correlation for the popularity of GoT is probably the amount of times it gets pirated.

This post was edited by Kayeto on Aug 19 2017 04:53pm