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May. 25th, 2011 11:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatWill say this about George RR Martin and Game of Thrones on HBO, I haven't seen this level of detail regarding world building since JRR Tolkien.
Go here: http://viewers-guide.hbo.com/game-of-thrones/#!/map/
I was playing with the website tonight and oh my god. Go and play if you want to see how to do it right.
They have a detailed run-down of all the houses, all the house mottos, the mythology, the religion, the history dating back over 6,000 years or more, an extensive map, each character description, etc. Talk about your detailed fantasy universes. This one even has an anthropological breakdown.
I think the closest we come to this sort of thing in Sci-Fi TV may either be Doctor Who (?? although that also feels like fly by the seat of my pants tv and not detailed pre-planned tv - very hard to do that in tv anyhow - which is why 80% of it is fly by the seat of my pants, and the endings are so unsatisfying) or Babylon 5. Although the new version of BSG came really close to planned tv (about as close as I've seen to date - not saying it wasn't flawed, the final two seasons had lots of problems and the finale felt slapped together...but still). Star Trek sort of winged it - more make it up as I go along, similar to Buffy and Whedon in that regard. Actually I think JJ Abrahams, Gene Roddenberry and Joss Whedon are all fly by the seat of my pants or throw it up on the wall and if it sticks go with it type of writers. Most television writers tend to be - which is why George RR Martin left tv and wrote novels, the limitations of television got on his nerves - ie, having to do fly by the seat of my pants because I can't rely on a damn thing or explore character to the extent that I want to on a tv show. (I have admittedly not seen Fringe - so may be wrong about that one, but it was definitely true of Alias and Lost.) I respect someone who really outlines a verse to this extent, since I've done it myself and it is not easy.
Go here: http://viewers-guide.hbo.com/game-of-thrones/#!/map/
I was playing with the website tonight and oh my god. Go and play if you want to see how to do it right.
They have a detailed run-down of all the houses, all the house mottos, the mythology, the religion, the history dating back over 6,000 years or more, an extensive map, each character description, etc. Talk about your detailed fantasy universes. This one even has an anthropological breakdown.
I think the closest we come to this sort of thing in Sci-Fi TV may either be Doctor Who (?? although that also feels like fly by the seat of my pants tv and not detailed pre-planned tv - very hard to do that in tv anyhow - which is why 80% of it is fly by the seat of my pants, and the endings are so unsatisfying) or Babylon 5. Although the new version of BSG came really close to planned tv (about as close as I've seen to date - not saying it wasn't flawed, the final two seasons had lots of problems and the finale felt slapped together...but still). Star Trek sort of winged it - more make it up as I go along, similar to Buffy and Whedon in that regard. Actually I think JJ Abrahams, Gene Roddenberry and Joss Whedon are all fly by the seat of my pants or throw it up on the wall and if it sticks go with it type of writers. Most television writers tend to be - which is why George RR Martin left tv and wrote novels, the limitations of television got on his nerves - ie, having to do fly by the seat of my pants because I can't rely on a damn thing or explore character to the extent that I want to on a tv show. (I have admittedly not seen Fringe - so may be wrong about that one, but it was definitely true of Alias and Lost.) I respect someone who really outlines a verse to this extent, since I've done it myself and it is not easy.
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Date: 2011-05-26 09:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-26 09:59 am (UTC)*laughs and laughs and laughs* Um, yeah, Doctor Who is very much making-it-up-as-it-goes-along. But the thing is that the show is so old, and so wide, that almost anything goes. By 'wide' I mean there is so much more than TV canon: There was a spin-off TV movie (a LONG time ago, and the Doctor was human), endless tie-in novels and comics, not to mention the Big Finish audios, which are deeply beloved and have a whole pantheon of extra canon and beloved Companions... And sometimes a book or audio will be adapted to TV (Family of Blood/Human Nature would be a good example of this), and then where does that leave fans? So basically it's a weird and wonderful and immensely rich 'verse and about as tricky to pin down as The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. :)
(Oh and I've not read/am not watching Games of Thrones, but am still trying to stay unspoiled, so don't use examples from that!)
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Date: 2011-05-26 04:39 pm (UTC)No wonder it takes Martin five years to write each of these books.
In a way, I think open-ended fiction may be easier to play with if you are into fanfic or meta analysis. Fly by the seat of my pants tv - same deal. Because there's so many gaps in the narrative, so many contradictions, that you can have a lot of fun hunting patterns and themes, and creating your own. It's less rigid and set.
Then again, it's nice to have clear cut canonical material in which to play.
Thanks for the info on Doctor Who. Wasn't sure. I'm guessing it's show-runner by show-runner. Moffat strikes me as a planner (no where as detailed as Martin or the guy who did Bab 5 but few people are), RT Davies a fly by the seat of my pants sort of guy, wouldn't know about the others.
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Date: 2011-05-26 10:32 am (UTC)