House of the Dragon v. The Rings of Power

Unfortunately, during latest months I didn't have the time and neither the mood to watch any movie worth writing about. Somehow though, I got to spend my hours before going to sleep with the two prequels mentioned in the title for "Game of Thrones", respectively for "Lord of the Rings", and even though I don't usually write about tv stuff, I said it might be a a good subject for an entry (+ I don't want to let the blog die for good yet). Besides that, being released at about the same time, the two series seemed comparable, therefore, the idea to put them one near the other, although I don't really have the same opinion at the end of the first season.

"House of the Dragon" has a soap-opera-like development bringing dragons as the unique element of fantasy, while "The Rings of Power" is a pure fantasy, or at least that's what it wants to be. This is where my negative bias ends for the first one, and the positive one stops for the second. The new soap (unsurprisingly after the original GoT) is wrapped in a very smart screenwriting, which somehow masks the typical lengths where nothing of much imporance happens, crowning that with an extremely efficient "refresh" in the second part of the season by jumping over some years in the action timeline, telling you basically: look, we didn't try to squeeze out some useless episodes to fill up the season, exactly when this seemed to be what's coming. On the other side, with all the fantasy elements LotR tries to add to its checklist, and despite limiting the first season to just 8 episodes, the script is horribly "economical" in the narrative development. Practically, if you extract some key elements out of three episodes or so (1,6,8) it's most probably enough to jump directly to the second season, whenever that might be released. The rest of it feels like empty filling bringing on top of it a bunch of cliche in the writing, which might be normal for a production, but it's not so normal to be so obvious. You can have some cliche in a script, but you need to alternate that with some more natural dialogue. Here what you get are lengthy sequences, spanning minutes of lines, which lead you to the "classic" question - who's talking like that for real? The lack of experience of the two lead writers is obvious - which you can confirm by a quick check on IMDb and find out that's basically the first production in their carreer.

If the narrative is "the root of all evil", more limited in GoT, and more obvious in LotR, unfortunately the balance between the two is completely messed by the rest of the production elements. If GoT benefits of an exceptional production design for a tv series, LotR is far far away to live up to some titles in the online press referring it at some point as "the most expensive series ever". The comparison is almost moot. You can only look at the CGI in LotR, which is either sloppy or absent, leading to hilarious scenes in terms of amplitude, such as the battle for Southlands between men and orcs limited to something like a handful of people in a small village with a few houses, somewho lucky enough to be found by the reinforcements arrived from across the sea, having a perfect sync to find exactly that place on the Middle-Earth map and land perfectly on time to change the fate of the battle (as I said the script is the "root of all evil"). To pick something ample enough for comparing, you can pick for instance the coronation scene in GoT's 9th episode, where I don't how much is the part of extras and how much is CGI, leaving the dragon aside, but in any case the whole sequence is impecable, not ignoring apparently trivial details such as the size of the place where the action takes place. Besides that, if we got to this, it's one of the two scenes in GoT that creates a powerful emotional impact on the viewer through all it brings along, including the actors and the score. The second scene is the one of the king's entrance in episode 8. Both scenes are very carefully built and could very well stand as a subject of a more complex analysis in something like New York Times' "Anatomy of a Scene". In LotR we don't really have something on par with that, maybe the ending of episode 6, where we basically watch the creation of Mordor, but even that seemed partly failed to me from the directing perspective, wasting some of its potential. To compare yourself (more-or-less), with a strong spoiler alert, I included in the end a capture with what transpired on YouTube from all the above mentioned (although I don't know if it will last long).

Some other parts where GoT shines and LotR struggles are the casting and the soundtrack. You can see again here, what's probably the experience of HBO's casting crew. Generally, I don't like expressing opinions about actors because this is subjective, but here the overall difference is obvious. With some exceptions, in LotR we have quite a lot of "flat acting". It's true that again... it the script offers you one cliche after the other, you probably need to struggle to make a believable impression. Concerning the sountrack, even the piece on the main title by Ramin Djawadi recycled from the original GoT has a stronger impact than what Howard Shore did for LotR, apparently brought in especially for that. Besides this, I think that Bear McCreary who has the credit for scoring the episodes content is a good composer, but even in "The Walking Dead" it took something like five seasons to release a pice that fits so well with a scene to stick to your head and make you search it after. For the moment here is completely "forgettable".

I must say that I'm not at all a fan of prequels - it always seemed to me the perfect example to find an opportunity to squeeze the last drop out of an used subject. In a sequel, at least you get a new ending that you wait to discover. In a prequel, you pretty much know the ending, which from my perspective reduces quite a bit the potential of the narrative to catch your attention. Besides that, I somehow had low expectations from "House of the Dragon" after the messed up ending in the original GoT, and I had somehow higher expectations from "The Rings of Power" after the previous experience with an excellent Amazon adaptation for "The Man in the High Castle". This probably contributed at least a bit to a completely reverted effect in my opinion after watching the first season of the two... In any case, my feeling is that LotR doesn't have much chance to grow unless the radically change the production team, and for GoT I think it's hard to keep the current level without getting affected by similar narrative issues, but we'll see.

The Orville

I've had "The Orville" on my "to watch" list for quite a while. There aren't many new SciFi series and it didn't have many episodes released, so I finally found some time for it. The verdict after is similar to most of the other opinions I found online - it's probably what you'd expect to see in a "Star Trek" series (well, at least if your "first contact" with ST was with TNG, DS9, Voyager, or even with Enterprise or the original series, and not with the more recent ones). I don't think that limits though the potential audience. And that's because "The Orville" has something of its own: the humor.

It stands clear from the first episode that "The Orville" starts as a parody of the classic recipe for a SciFi series, where we have an exploratory ship going bold into space "where no one has gone before". It's probably something to expect given that it's a series created + partially also written by Seth MacFarlane, in whose CV you won't find much stuff beyond the comic genre. Moreover, here he's also taking the part of captain Ed Mercer, leading a crew who seems more fit for a sequel of "Galaxy Quest" (another parody following the same pattern, for who still remembers it). It takes a while to get the interesting part, which gets more obvious as you advance in season 2 = the themes of the episodes start becoming more seriouse, even philosophical sometimes. If my first impression was of some easy comedy set in outer space, I definitely can't say that anymore after two seasons.

Indeed "The Orville" has its own specific humor, which you have to like. Otherwise, it might seem that it disregards some subjects. Actually, it's probably the perfect way to avoid getting into the area where life is seen either in white, or in black, sometimes derailing into some wannabe lessons of right and wrong. Unfortunately that seems to be a common trend lately, and "The Orville" has its own share of episodes trying to teach you some morals, but stil it doesn't dismiss the grey area. Even if sometimes it's present only as a discreet nuance, it's there, and the humor somehow helps keeping it.

Not long ago I wrote about the first season of "Star Trek: Picard" and I was saying it's much better than "Discovery" (at least compared to the first five episodes, because I couldn't handle more). Still, not even "Picard", for its first season at least, wasn't a Star Trek in it's "classic" sense, where the majority of the episodes were focused on a separate subject, even if we had elements of a global story arc. From that perspective "The Orville" is much closer to what Star Trek once was, possibly also due to including in the production team some ST veterans (Brannon Braga - one of the main writers from TNG to Enterprise, Jonathan Frakes - Riker from TNG, directing here some episodes, and others).

To conclude, I don't think I've seen a SciFi series structured like that since "Stargate: Atlantis" incoace, and even though in general I prefer a series that follows a more complex and continuous narrative line, which is obviously more engaging than stand-alone episodes, I still felt the need for something more "light". And what I can say until now is that "The Orville" seems to fill perfectly the place of that.

The Expanse

I didn't take to much advantage of the blogging vacation to gather new material. I was thinking to start the new year with "Tenet", and I could actually write enough about it. But not very positive stuff... So I decided for a subject on which I don't have so much to tell, but looks more promising: "The Expanse" a series where I didn't get far yet (I'm somewhere in the 2nd season of the 4 completed so far), sufficiently enough though to convince me.

Set somewhere in a future where mankind partially colonized the solar system, the action involves three power - the UN = Earth, Mars and OPA = Outer Planets Alliance = the asteroid belt. The first two are caught in a sort of cold war, and "the belt" gets the rebel part that doesn't get along with any of them but must serve both. In this context we have to narrative threads developing. One follows a crew of four that left a cargo ship to answer an emergency distress call, but soon they're the ones getting stranded in space. The other thread begins on Ceres, one of the belt stations, where a local cop gets a case of a missing girl, without any hope of actually solving it. Slowly the two paths merge, first towards the question of who and why is trying to start an interplanetary war.

The construction of the story might seem slow in the beginning, but was the most solid I've seen in a SciFi series in the last 10 years. Not that are many of these. "Killjoys" comes probably as the closest example, having there too an interplanetary conflict intrigue and (light spoiler) also an external enemy more dangerous than all it's known. Unfortunately "Killjoys" was completely buried by its last seasons, with an atrocious bad ending. For the political intrigue in "The Expanse", one of its good points, I've heard comparisons like "GoT in space", but I'd say that's actually even better than that = it slips less towards cheap soap. Moreover, within the limits of SciFi, which this is after all, it seemed to me very well grounded in the reality we know - e.g., the asteroids in the belt have their real shape, the gravity differs depending on where we're located in space, etc.

As I was saying, I didn't get too far with this, so as in any series case I don't know if I'll feel the same about it after the ending (I wrote a positive entry on "Killjoys" too in the beginning). As in GoT's case, this is also based on a series of novels, actually one awarded with a Hugo the year that just ended, which normally should offer a more solid guarantee for the story. Considering that the planned number of series is less than the number of published volumes, maybe this time we'll escape lame ending improvisations. We'll see...

The Walking Dead

I started watching TWD last November after I broke an ankle and I didn't have anything to fill the nights when I couldn't really sleep. It's not the best choice :)... Leaving aside the obvious aspect of bloody horror movie (where the obvious part is deceiving, but we'll come to that), we have enough characters who struggle to survive without an arm, leg, or something else. So, it's not very cheering up if you're in crutches, even if it's temporary, but on the other hand you learn you can survive it ;)

I don't write much about TV shows, 1 - because I'm not watching TV shows (there are exceptions, e.g., the current one) and 2 - you never know how bad would be the next season even if the previous was exceptional (e.g., GoT). But again I don't have another better topic, and also recently I got to the ending of TWD's eighth season - out of the nine released & still upcoming. It's complicated to summarize eight seasons in one post, but I'm not really planning to do that. Still, we need a bit of it...

The setting: The classic zombies story - sometime in a near future a virus wakes the dead to life. After coming back "the walkers" (to use the show's terminology) don't have much in common with their ex-self. The new main parameters: an acute need of meat, a great sense of hearing, being vulnerable just by hurting their head/brains and possessing a lethal bite that spreads the virus. Well, there's an additional detail here, essential for the new ecosystem, on how the number of "walkers" tends to overcome the number of people, but being the revelation you get at the end of the first season let's not spoil it. In all this context we have Rick Grimes, a sherrif's deputy in some little town close to Atlanta, who before the epidemics was badly injured in a shooting and brought to a hospital. Where he wakes up from a come after many days, alone in the abandoned building, and starts searching for his wife and kid in the surroundings. That's the beginning...

After 8 seasons I can firmly say that "The Walking Dead" is not a horror. It's just bloody :) In essence, the series follow the path of a survivors community which forms in season 1, in their trials of establishing a settlement and in their interactions with other communities. Actually what we have here is more of a life drama, even getting some slight soap opera touches, where the zombies are just the context, a sort of continuous natural calamity. Predictable, the main problem for the humans is typically brought by other humans. I guess that a synthetic description of TWD would be an ample stufy of the human behavior in a crisis context. Which might work well in a psychology course. Even a philosophy one, we have plenty of that too.

It's hard to compare TWD with something else. Sometimes it's quite grim and hard to watch ( be warned of S7E1 :) ), but also in some parts is very humane. If I would compare it to GoT, which is I think the only other series that I've watched during latest year, there's also the possibility here to set a betting list on what main character will die in the next episode. The main difference comes though on how the dissappearance is handled = if in GoT this is simplified up to the level of a certain "normality" over which we move quite fast, in TWD, besides having something like a full episode dedicated to it, there's also some following impact in the community that's visible in what episodes come after - including flashbacks and other stuff. Again, it's hard to compare, and it might sound like a negative torment - but it's not, it's just different & more humane.

The production has cinema level. Actually, I would say it surpasses many other zombie movies. It's pointless to discuss much on the craft quality on VFX and makeup. I imagine that is hard to have a noticeable soundtrack on long running series, including enough variation. Here the score is signed by Bear McCreary, who I'd say is at least at the same level with Ramin Djawadi and his work in GoT, even though there are some obvious external influences here and there. But probably the part that deserves the most appreciation in TWD is the cast and the actors' versatility, which gets a strong support from the script that brings up an excellent character construction. And it's not about only the main characters who were present since the first seasons. For instance King Ezekiel and Jadis/Anne are some of the most interesting parts in the cast. You can't say it's at least that's not something original to have a former zookeeper, having a tiger as a pet, talking in a Shakespearean English, and getting a "king" position :).

I believe that TWD is among the series that has the most consistent quality over its length - at least until now - for what I watched, although there seems to be plenty of criticism on how bad are the latest seasons starting from the 6th onward. I disagree. The 2nd season seemed a bit too "soap"-ish, and indeed there are some eye-rolling scenes in season 8, but the rest is ok. As a general description, the first seasons are more tense, and the last have a development that's more... gentle let's say = you don't really feel anymore a constant pressure that somebody's going to die in the following episode ( still... be warned of S7E1 :) ). And besides that, in particular the end of season 7 is among the best series closures that I've ever watched. I don't know about season 9 (it's apparently getting more praise than the previous), but I'd say that the ending of the eighth was perfect for a closure. So, I think the only current issue with TWD is that's getting "overused". Anyway, to conclude, if you're able to move over the violent side, you'll be left with plenty of other stuff - including lots of food for thought ;).

Game of Thrones

I wasn't planning for writing something on "Game of Thrones" (I generally avoid series - it's just too complicated). Still, the latest episode in the final season provided such a good opportunity for a quick entry that I can't miss it :) And since what I'm watching lately is mostly TWD or old Hong Kong stuff after midnight as a zolpidem replacement for falling asleep, I'm not seeing any better option coming this week. So... Disclaimer: this is not a series review - no intro, no story summary, it's just an opinion on the current status of season 8 ( very soon to be obsolete :) ).

It seems that the current, last GoT season managed to gather some "hate", culminating with "The Bells" = the episode when Daenerys, the mother of dragons, just snaps, and decides to slaughter all life in King's Landing. Stuff that's apparently so outrageous, and to which we also add some collateral disappointment, to lower GoT in IMDb Top Rated TV Shows from 2 to 4, with ratings around an average 6 for the unfortunate episode compared to ~9.5 for all time, and accompanied by plenty of websites claiming that the script is a lousy mess.

Let's make it brief and efficient: The writing is not that bad, it's just lazy... Let's just take as granted the producer's decision to end it in 6 episodes (honestly I think even less was possible - there's plenty of artificial filling also in these 6). Not having more material, it's again something that's on the side of "lazy writing". But why isn't that bad... Taking just three points: a) the Hound vs the Mountain; b) Cersei and Jaime vs the bricks; c) Daenerys vs Daenerys (let's keep the best for the last :P).

a) the Hound vs the Mountain - There was a long expected clash between the two (long enough to get its own name: Cleganebowl), and probably it was frustrating to not have it. The issues here seems to come from two sides: the context of a confrontation and the fact that both die. For the first, maybe there would've been indeed better to link the fight to a more serious motivation than just a simple clash to the death - there were speculations for a "trial by combat" as we've seen in the past (from this perspective - the Mountain vs the Viper sticks to probably the most remarkable 1vs1 of GoT). For the second part though: 1) what future could have had the Hound after? everything is about revenge and as bad as that is it's accepted consciously by the character - at least that's what we get from the short dialogue with Arya, and 2) as a nuance you have the choice of jump into fire as a last step for somebody with a fear of fire - not that bad writing ;)

b) Cersei and Jaime vs the bricks - It seems that somewhere in the novels we have a prophecy telling that the last woman of the Lannisters dies by the hand of a smaller brother, a reason for complaining on why Jamie's job was done by the bricks. 1) Maybe I'm wrong, but we actually don't have this particular prophecy in the series, so it had all the right to not fulfill. 2) However, we do have this ending in the series. Really. Maybe it's too subtle to be obvious. Who leads Cersei to a dead end ( pun intended :) ) ? I find this actually very good writing (what would spoil it would be to see both of them surviving somehow... we've just seen falling bricks there, right?)

c) Daenerys vs Daenerys - It's obvious the intention of producers for a shift from a positive to a villainous character from the moment when the mother of dragons finds about another living Targaryen, and doesn't seem to give up on her claim for the throne, but to try securing it even more. So, it was sort of predictable. How can you make a transition to evil/mad character in just 2-3 episodes, in a convincing manner? The fact that the burning carnage had such an impact to the public and generated so much "hate" looks to me like a great success for the "convincing" part. So again: good writing :) (the transition being too fast... well: lazy - but I said, we take as granted the 6 episodes length).

What's left? We'll see in a couple of days but the most predictable seems the theory of only one Targaryen left, and his name is not Daenerys. Just that she dying from somebody else's sword would seem to me a bit anti-climactic in the ending. Spoilers for what I don't know yet :)) : My bet, is that in the last episode, she will be given a final sane moment to redeem herself. Maybe something like a final "Dracarys", face to face with her own dragon ;)

Killjoys

No time for new movies this week... So I decided for a quick review of a series which afaik reached season 4, me stopping at 3 for now. Probably the best description that I can give starts from my answer on "why did I start watching Killjoys?" ...

I wanted a light SciFi, but with a decent story depth - let's say somewhere nearby SG Atlantis. The epic story (because that's where we're finally getting) starts with a trio of bounty hunters, in a galaxy far far away, employed by a sort of entity dealing mainly with catching wanted fugitives (dead or alive) - the RAC = Reclamation Apprehension Coalition. Two brothers and a girl, Dutch, the team leader. In the first episodes we have a couple of separate missions - "stand-alone" stories. But it doesn't take much and we're getting to a full-fledged conspiracy threatening "the Quad" = the planet with three inhabitable moons (well, more like two of them), or to be precise the population inhabiting these. Without many spoilers, we have an alien race, a green one :), which seems to have as final purpose the universe domination. The details are much more complex, and this makes quite a story ;)

In the first episodes "Killjoys" seems a bit low-budget and the acting has some room for improvement. What you can't deny is the story depth. I'd risk saying it's the most dense in any SciFi series that I've seen before. So dense that you get a repetitive feeling that the episode reached a conclusion and ends at 30-35 minutes of its length (although felt longer) - but surprise, you still have 5-10 more adding something usually new. I think the first three seasons could have been easily doubled adding some lengths to each episode - and honestly is admirable that the producers didn't do it. Some other particularity about the story are the strong connections between the narration segments. In other series from some point onward the writers invent plenty of stuff that doesn't have much in common with what happened before, just to have a new base to keep it going. I could not believe when I discovered at the end of the third season new connections with the first episodes (e.g., why a strange cult of monks have as basic ritual safe-inflicting scars - you have no chance imagining in episode 2-3 how valid/logic is the explanation you'll get only in the 3rd season).

Let's be objective though, and see the bad side too. First, I've heard the forth season is not as good, can't tell yet... Second, we have a soap-opera piece too with tangled family relationships and related surprises (but how many series don't). There are also some attempts a la Game of Thrones of killing some characters who you wouldn't expect departing the cast, but even if they do, their disappearance is maybe not as shocking as wanted, especially when some find their way back :). Finally, I have to admit that a reason that made me continue with "Killjoys" after episode 1-2 was that I felt a certain resemblance to "Farscape", or more exactly between Aeryn Sun there and Dutch here + I liked the leading actress. Unfortunately, Hannah John-Kamen isn't really Claudia Black, and as some other part of the cast too, there are moments when she's not credible enough for her part. In any case, you still have the story ;) ...

Rating: 4 out of 5 (up to the 3rd season)

10 years of blog & Stargate: Atlantis

I have already a few good minutes of staring at a blank page with no idea of what to write at 10 years of blog (well, 7 for the English version). I'm a bit puzzled how I didn't close it yet. I recently found out that Romania seems to be the EU country with the least cinemas per capita. But since I never really cared of earning something from my blog probably doesn't matter that much. I'd really not turn this anniversary entry into a political one and also I already see rising the depressing potential of it, so let's just move swiftly to the movie subject...

Why "Stargate: Atlantis"? First of all, there are several moments during a year's time when I typically try my best to find a movie that really deserves recommending = close to the holidays and the current day. So I tried to "save" "Toni Erdmann" for the current occasion based on ratings, awards, etc., but after watching it I decided that it doesn't deserve the effort of writing an entry (especially the one of today). So, I was left without a subject... I got to "Atlantis" because it was the most convenient. Despite the fact that it ended quite a while ago, for me is just running now = I re-started watching season 2 this summer from where I left it in... 2007, I guess? (we're anyway at the "10 years" step).

In any case I don't have much to say, because there is too much to say. For who didn't have any contact with the "Stargate" universe, here's the basic premise: a bunch of star gates spread throughout the universe and connected by holes + the travel between them. For more context watch the movie - "Stargate" (1994) - probably one of the few good films of Roland Emmerich (I counted two) & you can follow up with "Stargate SG1". "Atlantis" is a spin-off where Earth settles an operations base in the city that gives the name of the series - a remnant of a long gone civilization (the Ancients) highly advanced, but extinct from the galaxy after a conflict with "the wraith", some sort of alien vampires (no blood and teeth, but having more scary looks). Well, through the seasons you get also to meet other enemies but as I said.. it would be too much to tell.

I don't know if it's because I re-started watching "Atlantis" somewhere at the beginning of the summer and it helped moving my mind from some problems that were beyond the standard stress level, but the best description I can give is that "it grows on you". Initially I found the writing in some episodes from season 2 to be a bit silly. Besides that you also have a visible difference of how the TV production level changed in the last 10 years. But slowly the quality of the scripts grew and it became that type of series that works perfectly from time to time to disconnect your brain: relatively short episodes (~40 minutes) + a set of characters that become familiar + typically without extreme emotional impact (although there are a couple episodes that are a strong exception) + quite enough humor for an action SciFi. As a conclusion, I would risk comparing "Atlantis" with "MASH" from a very personal point of view, obviously keeping the proportions (or more precisely the subliminal in "Atlantis" vs the direct approach in "Mash") = in both of them an episode is pretty much the right dose to make you take things more lightly in life ;)

Man in the High Castle

Existence is complicated. Existence is weird. Existence is a novel. That's probably how a marketing tagline would look for the book written more than 50 years ago by P.K.Dick. Probably one of the first tries of alternate history where WW2 had a different ending, which got a Hugo at that time. And brought recently in a series that deviates quite a bit from the original, but offers though enough to catch the viewer, and keeps a decent level of PKD feel in it ... At least for the first season. We'll see for what's following ...

Unfortunately, I don't have the proper mood to extend the description, but considering that I'm lately neglecting my blog, I said it might be a good idea to catch up at least with a brief recommendation :)

"It is far from easy to be a good man. In fact, as one gets older, it becomes more and more difficult to know what a good man is. Yet it also becomes increasingly important to at least try." (Man in the High Castle, series I, episode 10)

"Game of Thrones"

From time to time I'm writing about mini-series. But something spanning multiple seasons, no. There are plenty of reasons. 1. I'm not watching TV series because I don't have time for it (well, except this one). 2. It's complicated to write about a series, because ... it's a series :) = lot to cover. 3. You don't know when to write about a series .. you might be tempted in the 1st season, but what if the 2nd is better ?, what if the 3rd is abysmal ? And I think I can get more arguments. Still, the "GoT" episode from two Sundays ago ( + the fact that again I didn't see any movie the last week :) ) made me "risk" today's entry ...

It's hard to describe the "GoT" subject. In a funny note I could call it a sort of epic soap-opera set in a fictive medieval realm, with a couple fantasy elements ( three dragons, some zombies and a cult getting from time to time some obscure magic infusion from a "god of fire" ). More present than the fantasy is the drama, which is centered on the battle for the land's throne. Or, if the various noble houses fighting can't get there, at least the target is winning a piece of the country. All this leads to extremely entangled situations, involving lots of characters, with very diverse type of human behavior. Probably that's where the success of the series comes from. Unlike others, in "GoT" plenty of the action threads cut the cheesyness and the happy-end, being probably much closer to a real outcome, and often revealing the darkest side of things. Maybe I should avoid a comparison, because it's definitely not the best one, but for me it's sort of a mix between "Dune" and "Rome" (if smth like that can be imagined). Anyway ...

As it's probably known, the series is based on a the writings of G.R.R. Martin, who still has some unfinished books to publish. I didn't read anything, but the script (at least up to the current season 4) is one of the few that managed to keep me on track watching weekly the episodes = the adaptation, no matter how close or not to the original, is excellent. Besides that, the production part (made by HBO) it's far better than many big screen cases. To end with the technical side, we have a soundtrack by Ramin Djawadi, which I'll risk to say it's the best I've heard by now in a TV series. In any case, I've left at the end the most important part .. the casting ...

We don't have many big names among the actors. Actually, I guess many got known through "GoT". It's not the case to start enumerating, because I'll certainly lose somebody. To get back to the intro, as I said, what convinced me to write this entry is an episode - more precisely 6 from season 4. Besides some other scenes + the story development, "the final trigger" to call it so, was the best monologue (acting+script) of a pissed off guy, that I've watched since Pacino in "Scent of the Woman" ( no kiddin' :) ). For me, "Farscape" remains the best TV series that I've ever seen (and for which I hope I'll be able sometimes to get time to rewatch it, but I shouldn't be alone ;) for some reasons). It's one of the few cases which did grow enormously from season to season, up to a level that I doubt it can be easily reached. Even though there are years since then, I can still remember about some episodes like "Daedalus Commands/Icarus Abides", "The Choice", "Into the Lion's Den", "Dog with Two Bones", "We're so Screwed" or others, that most probably don't mean anything to anybody, so I'll stop counting :) ... The point is that "The Laws of Gods and Men" from "GoT" gets to that level, and I'll have it stuck in my head for a while (maybe a bit subjective :) don't know, don't care, but I loved it). Spoiler: the ending, starring Peter Dinklage, script by D.B. Weiss & David Benioff below (for how long it lasts on YT). I don't know how relevant is, being out of context for somebody who didn't see anything from the series by now, but anyway, enjoy ;)

Rating: 5 out of 5 ( until now :) )

Game of Thrones

I usually avoid writing about series ... actually since quite some time I don't really have what to write about because I don't have the time to watch any. But to get back to my first sentence, the reason for I'm avoiding writing about series is that I don't know how "valid" my writing will be on the next season. So, if I write, I prefer doing it after the series end. And after the series end, it usually happens that I'm not anymore so .. thrilled about what I was watching therefore .. I'm not writing. Obviously there are some exceptions, like "Farscape" for instance. So, even if it doesn't really get on par with "Farscape" ( but for me actually nothing gets at that level which was set and fixed long ago :) ), I said to risk this time and to say some stuff about "Game of Thrones" because the first season seemed very promising.

Except "Stardust" it doesn't come into my mind now anything from the bunch of fantasies made after "Lord of the Rings" to be above a certain level. So, even if we're talking about a series here, considering the lack of good movies on this area, I'm gonna allow myself to consider "Game of Thrones" the 2nd fantasy that worth mentioning from the ones that premiered after LotR. Anyway, each of the three is a different genre in the end. LotR can be categorized as the classic type (especially considering the importance in the literature of the genre). "Stardust" is a little jewel by Neil Gaiman that managed to combine lots of stuff in the same movie in a fantasy setting and managed to get it coherent, watchable and appropriate and appealing for almost any age and any person. "Game of Thrones" is, at least after the first season, more like a medieval thriller than a fantasy. Even if you know that you have sufficient elements of fantasy somewhere, they're not that visible .. and it's mostly because you don't really have the "magic factor" ( apparently it will be more in the next seasons ). You can actually consider it like some middle age setting, in a context where some ruling clans are involved with or without their own will in a bunch of intrigues having an apparent final point in getting the throne of the land. And to this setting is added also a supernatural threat from the far north which will come .. and will come .. and will come .. and (spoiler) in the first season it doesn't come anymore, but it's still one of the elements that beside the rest keeps your eyes bound to the screen.

It's complicated to tell more from the subject, I don't really think it's a good idea, because all the charm is almost in the twists and turns that are going on through the series. And as a difference from many other series where when a new subplot is introduced in the action is pretty much because the screenwriters didn't have a clue about where the story goes when they started writing and they have to come up with a new idea, here everything fits together perfectly. Of course, the main reason for this is the fact that we don't have an original scenario. It's an adaptation after the first volume of the (up till now) four written by George R. R. Martin. Well, I won't exaggerate however in praising it because it's definitely not the best scenario I've seen, in the sense that it does have lots of cliches but these are usually covered by let's say the "heat of the moment" = if the action really catches your attention, you won't observe many of them. And usually it does catch your attention.

The production level is excellent despite the fact that you won't see much effects as you would expect from a fantasy. The cast doesn't have many big names in it, but it is quite good as it is, and I would say even more - that it's one of the best series casts I've ever seen. Even if I didn't read the book, if somebody would ask me now to pick one actor for one of the roles I wouldn't hesitate to pick the same one I've seen, even for the smallest parts. Visually is nice due to the location variety, of the set decoration, etc, but I wouldn't say that's really a masterpiece. As sound however I enjoyed it a lot ( or maybe it's the impression made by the intro tune, even so .. :) ).

What else to say ... To make a comparison to other production released by HBO I would pick "Rome". You have pretty much the same level of violence, sex, action and all the other stuff that makes it almost rated R. But besides these you also have a subject that keeps you eager and waiting to watch the next episode which doesn't happen to many series. Unfortunately the second season will be released not earlier than the next year :) ... And as I don't really know if it will keep the same level (although the last episode of the first definitely shows some promise) I'm not going to give a rating, but if it would be to recommend a series released this year to be watched this would be definitely "Game of Thrones" ;)