(no subject)

[shadowkat]

1. And I'm still entertained by the youtube videos ripping apart Game of Thrones S8 as horrible and the worst ever. (It's not. There will be worse. And the internet fandom is wonky, but amusing. But there's a reason I never got that into the Game of Thrones fandom. Although I do miss some of the people on DW who were REALLY into it and had read the books and are long gone. I texted my brother, who basically stated he was never that invested and felt it was badly written and acted, and built on an absurd HBO logarithm to keep it going indefinitely, and all he really wanted to see was Ayra put on various faces and go on a killing spree. I told him he was wrong about HBO, it wasn't HBO who did that but George RR Martin, who had written this insane narrative structure where each and every character had their own point of view chapter. And how in each book he added characters. So by the time we reach book five, we have about a hundred point of view characters, a thousand characters to keep track of, and fifteen story threads...and none of them appear to be connected.
Reading it was like leap frogging from fantasy novel to fantasy novel, often as the last one ended on a cliff-hanger. Martin as I informed my brother is like a mad garderner who instead of pruning or tending his garden, just keeps planting and letting it do what it wants. So I wanted to see how the hell they'd turn that into a television series.)

What's most entertaining? The petition to remake it. LOL! Has anyone asked for that to be done before? Because that's new to me.

Apparently they got reamed for not using their powers for good, so they decided to Raise funds for Emilia Clark's Charity to aid brain damaged and stroke victims.

And they are apparently putting up a petition to get D+D fired from Star Wars Triology.

Sigh. We live in an age of absurd petitioning. Petitions don't work people. But it is hilarious. Remember the good old days when people just ranted on fan boards and sent mean letters? In 2002, in the Buffy fandom, people went crazy on the internet boards after a highly controversial episode. And the writers came forward to justify their actions and attempt to apologize. The fans declared that the writers betrayed them. It got pretty nasty for a bit there. But there were no petitions.

Honestly, you'd think there was nothing else out there for folks to watch? Or that this was the only lackluster ending. I didn't like the ending, but I didn't think it was that bad. I've seen worse. So have you. Come on.

2. Saw both Bumblebee and Jurassic World: The Fallen Kingdom on television this weekend. Don't recommend either. Jurassic World was slightly better, due to the acting and direction and production value. Bumblebee was disappointing -- it was written and directed by a female director/writer -- but she clearly wasn't given much money or support -- because it looked like a cheap straight to video movie, with a few scattered good bits here and there. Otherwise stiff acting, and bad dialogue. I was annoyed. The set-up was pretty cool -- an eighteen year old female mechanic and former high diver, discovers a beaten up volkswagon beetle, and tries to repair it -- only to find out it is in reality an alien robot warrior that can transform into a car.

It subverts a lot of gender film tropes -- the hero is a teenage girl, not a boy.
Her love interest is a geeky black boy, not a hunky white dude or nerdy white boy.
Her Mom has remarried an upstanding guy, and her kid brother is into karate. Her mom is played by Janeanne Garanfola. (sp?). And the girl by Hailee Steinfield. It should have been good. But the other casting was horrid. And I was annoyed.

I want good female action flicks, with woman allowed to be in the traditional male roles. Get with it Hollywood.

Jurassic World -- was slightly better in this respect, with Bryce Dallas Howard. But not great. That said, it was better written and had cool special effects. But overall the story was rather cheesy and unbelievable, with boilerplate bad guys.

Oh well. I tried Flea Bag again -- but the first episode keeps putting me to sleep for some reason.

Not a great television day. It's my own fault, I could have picked other fair.

Comments

[wpadmirer]

I saw like two episodes of GOT WAY back in the beginning. I was visiting a friend who insisted I see it. Nothing about it appealed to me, so I never watched it again. I find the craziness around the fandom no more annoying than the craziness around any fandom these days. People seem to have this idea that the writers are supposed to do what they want - and they all want something different.

I have watched things that ended in a way I didn't enjoy, but I don't go batshit over it.

I didn't like Infinity War and loved Endgame, which is pretty much the reverse of the most vocal people. But you know what? I don't care. I'm allowed. (grin)

[shadowkat]

I find it more amusing than annoying. Fans always go batshit over a story going in a direction they didn't want it to. The Avengers fandom got split over how Natasha's story arc was wrapped up in Endgame -- I thought it worked as did most people.

The petition thing though is new. That I don't remember seeing back in the day.

GoT -- had an interesting fandom mix. Because of the books. Also it did weird things, that a lot of the established Hollywood trope fantasy epics didn't do. And it had both fantasy fans and non-fantasy fans in the fandom. There were a lot of people in that fandom that had no patience for fantasy stories or genre.
So it grabbed "mainstream" and "non-mainstream" viewers. And as a result, much like Harry Potter and Twilight before it -- introduced a lot of people to a fandom who'd never been in one before. Who'd never gotten that invested in a show, and never really read fanfic or thought about it.

[wendelah1]

I was never in GoT fandom but at least in the fandoms I did participate in, complaining-- about the writing, about the acting, about the lack of representation, about whatever the cause du jour happened to be--was half the fun, at least for one contingent of fans. Everyone else got to complain about the complainers. And/or block them. Tumblr is the worst for that sort of thing, and Twitter. But I hear the boards were pretty wild, too, back in the day. My husband wrote a funny meta-fic about it.

Since I don't watch many action movies, I don't have a stake in who stars in them, but I am certain of one thing: if movie makers believed they would make more money putting women in traditional male roles, they would. I'm not saying they're right and you're wrong. There have been action movies with female leads that have made a lot of money for the studios. That one with Charlize Theron (that I walked out of after five minutes), for example. But they were seen as risky outliers and in the end, it's a business. It's all about the bottom line. Plus, most of the people in charge of creative decision-making are still men. Until that changes...

[shadowkat]

Since I don't watch many action movies, I don't have a stake in who stars in them, but I am certain of one thing: if movie makers believed they would make more money putting women in traditional male roles, they would.

Oh it's far more complicated than that. A couple of things, up until recently they believed that the high wage earners and the key demographic was white male, between the ages of 18-45. This demographic doesn't tend to watch much scripted television, is into video games, action, and buys things like computers, cars, television sets, and in the theaters buys popcorn, beer, etc. It's not until recently that this marketing research was blown wide open and they discovered other demographics were buying this stuff and in some respects out-purchasing the white dudes. They were ignoring a whole group that was highly profitable.

Because you don't follow action films or action television serials -- you haven't noticed that it is changing. You don't see the commercials. You really need to check out commercials -- particularly the car, electronics, iphone, computer stuff -- to see who they are marketing these things to. They aren't being marketed to straight white dudes any longer -- because they aren't the only high wage earners.

Captain Marvel is among the top 25 biggest money makers of all time. Black Panther is in 10th place. Guess what is in third place? Titantic. That's right, Titantic beat out Fast and the Furious. It is a romance. Star Wars : The Force Awakens which stars a female hero and lead is in fourth place, above the Avenger's first film. Avenger's Endgame which has several strong female characters and heroes, and busts a lot of gender tropes here and there, is in second.

AVATAR is in first place, and it's weird. I'm not sure you can really call it a white dude action flick. Some of the strongest roles in it are women, the weakest role and least memorable is the guy.

So, yes, it's changing. Right now Shonda Rhimes has a lot of power in television, she's a black woman writer/director -- she has more power than Joss Whedon or Chris Carter ever had. She was just given a $100 million dollar deal to develop television programming for Netflix. Ava Du Vernay is also up and coming, as is Patty Jenkins -- who did Wonder Woman.

And look at the fandom? After Twilight, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the Hunger Games -- the comic con and fan conventions changed. Women rule at them. Crowds of women took over. And women found a way to make fanfic legit.

It's changing.

[wendelah1]

That's good. That's fantastic. But you don't think we're in a disagreement, right? If representation is improving, and marketing is changing (I don't have to watch the commercials--I believe you), it's because the studios decided they were leaving money on the table. If they think they can keep making money marketing more and more movies to women, they will do so eagerly. Then you'll be happy--and I'll be happy because you're happy. Win-win.

[shadowkat]

No, I think I may have misread. There's a view that the studios will always do it that way...but I'm seeing changes happening. Or a shift. So, I get frustrated that others don't see it too. ;-)

The shift towards more and more movies and television series with heavily POC casts, such as the popular Crazy Rich Asians (no whites in the cast), Black Panther (two - three white people in tiny roles, or token roles), the new Terminator movie that is featuring Linda Hamilton in the lead, not Arnold.
And Captain Marvel -- who is taking the place of Captain America in the Avengers series. Not to mention the additions of the Black Panther and the Wasp.

We also are having comedic rom coms with heavy set women -- like Rebel Wilson, as opposed to just the guys getting those parts. Or Amy Schumer in romantic comedy films as opposed to only Cameron Diaz. Or The Book Club -- a romantic comedy with Diane Keaton in her 70s.

[dlgood]

I've not really followed the Game of Thrones fandom, at least, in the way that I was part of Buffy fandom. I've changed and my online interactions have changed. And unlike Buffy, I also have people IRL who talk about GoT so I didn't need online for it.

But, where GoT fandom penetrated for me was that the professional National Security/Foreign Policy Journalists and Commentators really got into this show. I've sat in report review meetings with Naval Officers who compared them to the ones run by Stannis Baratheon... And obvs, we had conversation of what Defense writers thought of the show's handling of military tactics in the last season.

The petition is dumb, and most of us acknowledge that. And while there are always going to be unhappy viewers, it's also a product of a season where the writers didn't sell their story arc as well as they thought they had when they wrapped the season.

But then, I also presume GRRM hasn't finished his books because he can't figure out how to end it either.

[shadowkat]

I've not been that involved in the fandom either, to be honest. Sort of lurked on the fringes. It's a show I've been able to talk to people IRL or offline about, unlike Buffy. A lot of my co-workers watch it, and family members are into it. The only people online that I've interacted with are either on DW or FB, and they are like you -- not invested in the fandom. But on youtube -- there's about a thousand video reviews, and now this bizarre petition, which was apparently started as more of a joke? I only knew about it -- because it got referenced by one of the many professional critic reviews, articles.

What I think happened are two things:

1. The internet is so accessible right now - that you can post a video of your review for free and instantly from your home. Sort of akin to doing a post. Or post a petition as a joke and have it go viral, and get people to take it seriously -- neither of which existed back in the day.

2. GoT was designed in such a way that made it almost impossible to end well. When I state that GRR Martin's books were a sprawling convoluted mess, I'm not exaggerating. He starts out with about 50-100 different point of view chapters, and as he moves on, he adds more. For every five he gets rid off (due to character deaths), he adds six or seven. By the fifth book, the plot is all over the place. The first three books are actually fairly contained and workable, the last two not so much. So the writers had no choice but to go off book -- and the series worked best when they were on book. They signed and committed to the series and aired it around the time the fourth book came out. I don't think they knew that GRR Martin had no real clue where he was going. I didn't realize it until I finished the fifth book -- which came out after the third season of the series. So, I can understand how hard it was to wrap up that series. But, with some tweaking -- they probably would have been able to sell it better.

[dlgood]

I can understand how hard it was to wrap up that series. But, with some tweaking -- they probably would have been able to sell it better.

Pretty much. I always wonder if the boss has anybody around who can (and is allowed to) say "hold on, I don't get it". On some of my previous projects for the Navy, that was actually part of my job.

[shadowkat]

I was wondering the same. I watched with interest the cast read-through of the finished script. And the cast's reactions were hilarious -- they looked puzzled.

Episodes 4 and 5 could have been easily fixed. They even show how one little tweak would have made the aerial attack in episode 4, where Rhaegal (the second dragon) gets shot down -- make sense. People photo-shopped it on Reddit. And in 5? They could have just had her go for Cersei and accidentally set off the wildfire taking out the city. Or have her decide to target it to take out Cersei, not realizing it would take out everyone. That's even set up several seasons prior in a discussion between Jamie and Brienne. Not to mention with Tyrion.

It wasn't hard to do.

I can't help but think that someone wasn't paying attention in the editing room?
From what I understand they filmed a lot of scenes that never aired to fool people trying to spoil the ending. (Didn't work, people were able to spoil it anyway.)

A lot of the problems I've seen with television series -- is when the writers attempt to fool the audience or get worried about spoilers. They get so caught up in pulling off a big plot twist or shocker -- that they don't pay attention to the details or what they need to do to earn it. I noticed it with both Buffy and Angel, as well as BSG and Lost. And also here.

The better written television serials like Friday Night Lights, the Americans, The Wire...don't do that. They trust their audience more, and don't feel the need to pander or go for shock value or big surprises. Genre show writers, unfortunately do. And genre fans, I've discovered, are often less forgiving of it in series that raised their expectations...see Star Wars - The Last Jedi and the fandom response to it as an example.

[dlgood]

They even show how one little tweak would have made the aerial attack in episode 4, where Rhaegal (the second dragon) gets shot down -- make sense.

It would have needed (1) them showing Rhaegal looking wounded/fatigued and not flying well and (2) a fog bank. Without fog, you can see the ships from miles away and either avoid them or attack them from a favorable angle. Fog is the only real way to justify being surprised by a fleet of large ships.

A lot of the problems I've seen with television series -- is when the writers attempt to fool the audience or get worried about spoilers. They get so caught up in pulling off a big plot twist or shocker -- that they don't pay attention to the details or what they need to do to earn it.

That's definitely a big part of it. As a storyteller, you shouldn't try to be too cute. Viewers who are invested in a long running show care about how a show gets where it goes - not just a shocking moment - and you can't sacrifice the former to produce the latter without it the whiff of artifice.

[shadowkat]

You definitely would not have agreed with the Reddit bunch -- the tweak was the flying angle. ;-) Personally, I have to admit I didn't see how Reddit's adjustment helped either. Because I found it odd that Dany didn't see the ships. Or why the dragons couldn't avoid the harpoons when Drogon was able to avoid all of them at the battle of Kings Landing.

As a storyteller, you shouldn't try to be too cute. Viewers who are invested in a long running show care about how a show gets where it goes - not just a shocking moment - and you can't sacrifice the former to produce the latter without it the whiff of artifice.

That's what happened here, I think. I watched the interviews with the creators and read them -- and they were going for shock value, being cute. They went out of their way to mislead the audience -- always a bad idea. This is an audience they already had. It didn't require plot twists and shock value. Shocking moments can back-fire on a writer and jar the viewer - throwing them out of the story.

[dlgood]

I found it odd that Dany didn't see the ships. Or why the dragons couldn't avoid the harpoons

Visibility is a problem. There hasn't been a major naval engagement where enemy ships are within eyesight of each other since 1916. Airplanes allowed fleets to spot each other beyond the horizon.

But prior to cannons, naval ships could attack with greek fire but otherwise had to close for ramming or for sailors to board each other. Shipboard siege engines couldn't sink warships. That part, we have to handwave.

And, yeah, the Dragons may be as big as jet liners, but they maneuver like birds. Hitting and killing a dragon would have required the dragon to be unable to see the ship to dodge the attack (now that they know they can be hit and killed in the air) or too injured to do so.

They went out of their way to mislead the audience -- always a bad idea

We look back at the Red Wedding, and viewers don't know that in those scenes where Tyrion and Tywin argue while Tywin is writing letters --- that those letters are ones that convince Walder Frey and Roose Bolton to betray the Starks. It is a shock - though the audience (and characters) already know that Bolton is untrustworthy and that the Freys are angry at Robb. A sensible viewer could surmise that Walder Frey wouldn't be appeased with loser Edmure as a son-in-law.

So that one worked.

Jamie, OTOH - returning to Kings Landing to be with Cersei (rather than to kill her) and his complete lack of conflict when he did so... that seemed like more of a swerve. Larger ones, as well...

[shadowkat]

Thanks for the information on the naval and air strikes. It clarifies why it didn't quite work for me. Knowing none of that -- it was the continuity issues that bugged me. Yes, they set up early on that a harpoon can wound and possibly take down a dragon -- so I can sort of buy that Rhaegal got killed, what I can't buy is after doing that -- Drogon takes out all the harpoons with no problem at all. So when they have three dragons, they can't take out the harpoon? When they have two? They can't take out the fleet and harpoons? But with one, they can?
That I found to be jarring. If I'd known everything you did -- I'd have been even more jarred.

The problem is --as you showed with the Red Wedding example, they obviously were doing it right early on. Not to mention the Battle of Kings Landing -- that GRR Martin wrote -- which aired towards the end of S2.

That's the biggest problem with the latter seasons -- the continuity issues. We went from a sort of realistic depiction of a medieval fantasy world (rare) to one that required a lot of hand-waving. For example Jamie and Brienne's long journey from the Riverrun to Kings Landing and how they almost lose their lives along the way.

It's one thing to set up a world that requires hand-waving from the beginning, but if you change the rules mid-way through..you are going to lose a sizable portion of the audience. Not everyone in the audience cares about that sort of thing -- but a sizable portion of fantasy/sci-fi fans do and were into Game of Thrones because it was a "realistic" fantasy series. That's why they were watching it.

Jamie, OTOH - returning to Kings Landing to be with Cersei (rather than to kill her) and his complete lack of conflict when he did so... that seemed like more of a swerve. Larger ones, as well...

Exactly. Nothing Jamie does after Season 8 episode two makes much sense. He was barely seen in episode 3. I watched the interviews with the actor -- and he didn't get either. Why would he declare his love for Brienne, sleep with and make the decision to be with Brienne then two days after everyone leaves for Kings Landing, decide to go down there to save Cersei? Why even go there with Brienne to begin with?

I was jarred by the Brienne/Jamie scenes and the ones after it. The only scenes that worked for me, were Jamie making Brienne a knight and Tyrion and Jamie's scenes. The rest just...felt jarring. Like the character kept taking 180 degree swerves...

[dlgood]

I can sort of buy that Rhaegal got killed, what I can't buy is after doing that -- Drogon takes out all the harpoons with no problem at all.

There's a really amusing ScreenRant video post about it. Which mostly says what we've been saying, in a pretty targeted way. Basically an "Okay, I accept this... but if that, then why the next thing?"

E4
A: A dragon is no match for a bunch of Scorpions!
B: Okay, yeah.

E5
A: A bunch of scorpions are no match for a dragon!
B: But wait, you just said the opposite?

[shadowkat]

LMAO!

That's hilarious. Actually the reviews (video and otherwise) on GoT S8 are more entertaining than the season.

It's as if the writers threw logic out the window.

I do adore Peter Dinklage's video -- where he states, "They send all the women and children to crypt to escape the walking dead? Really? Tyrion isn't as smart as he thinks, is he? He's actually been making some really dumb decisions lately."