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[swan_tower]

A Review of the Game of Thrones TV Series Premiere, As Written by Someone Not Starting from a Position of A Priori Contempt For the Fantasy Genre

(LJ won't let me have a post title that long.)

I thought it was pretty good. The three of us watching who had read the books thought it was a faithful and effective adaptation of the source material; the fourth member of the audience, who had not read the books, said it succeeded at getting her interested, which is what you want from a premiere. Lots of good casting choices, and because it's a series, it can take the time it needs to build up the characters and the world by methods more gradual than Ye Olde Info-Dumpe.

It being HBO, of course, they were not shy about showing you the nekkid, and things that were faintly disturbing on the page become moreso when you actually see them happening. (In particular, it's hard to miss how problematic the Dothraki are.) But I didn't feel they were gratuitously amping the R-rated stuff up just for the sake of spectacle, which is my usual HBO complaint.

I definitely want to see more. Though we'll probably go the route of recording several eps and then watching them in one go, rather than doling it out an hour each week.



And that, New York Times, is how you do it. You get a reviewer who actually likes the genre to give you an opinion. Not somebody who is convinced of the worthlessness of fantasy before they ever sit down to watch the show. Please remedy this error in the future.

Comments

[alchymyst.livejournal.com]

I thought it was pretty good too. I actually started rereading the books last week for the series and for the next installment in July. The series is indeed quite faithful to what's on the page. I think they are doing a good job at explaining who's who and what's going on via some extra dialogue, because it could get pretty confusing.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I admit, it's testing my resolve on the decision I made a while ago, which is that I'm not going to re-read the series until it's closer to being done. (Otherwise I'll end up waiting another three or four years for the book after the next one, and forget the whole plot again.)

The only major change I managed to pick up on was the brief scene in King's Landing with Cersei and Jaime, and I thought that one was a good call in terms of clarifying the whole business with Jon Arryn.

[sarcastibich.livejournal.com]

I'm watching it with friends who haven't read the books, and they were left confused with some of the "Who's Who" and the underlying world/culture. They asked "so what is up with the wall of ice?" for example, and are looking to me for context of interpersonal relationships sometimes. I could see how some would be confused while trying to figure out the layers without having read the book.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

The newcomer in our group had looked at the HBO website, which explains all the Houses and such, so yeah -- I can see how not all the details come through right away.

[alchymyst.livejournal.com]

You have to remember, though, that in the books you don't get a lot of information up front either. Most of the exposition is done through dialogue, and it takes a few chapters to figure out how Robert got the throne, who killed whom, and why X hates Y. I think it feels more confusing on screen because of time constraints and the need to switch between scenes fairly quickly so as to really keep things moving.

[starryniteynite.livejournal.com]

Here's the website I used to fight the urge to hit pause every five seconds : http://viewers-guide.hbo.com/game-of-thrones/?cmpid=ABC794
...be warned, though. it's HIGHLY addictive