Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Game of Thrones, 2nd viewing.

My son, Todd, and my brother-in-law, Dave, were over to the house on Sunday and Monday and we watched the entire Game of Thrones, which I had been saving up for them.

What struck me on the second go around was the quality of the dialogue. Most often pithy and clever and at the same time philosophical and even deep.

Got me interested in what people were saying online about G.of T. and started reading reviews, most of which were positive, but a few which were so out of line as to make me despair.

I keep thinking that people have woken up to the fact that there are some well-written fantasies and science fiction that compare well to the best literature.

But you still have the old nerd cliches in the reviews -- so off base, I have to wonder if the reviewers even read the books? Most of the criticisms -- such as "powerless" women were turned on their heads by the end of the series.

Oh, well.

What chance do comics ever have of being taken seriously? Ever?

7 comments:

yokem55 said...

The Starks Will Rise Again!

In all seriousness, the only thing I didn't like about the HBO series is that (at the start of the series I hadn't yet read the books yet) in casting Sean Bean, I knew straight away his character would have a less than happy ending...

Andy Z said...

I hadn't read the books going in, so I had no preconceptions.

That being said, I thought it was great. Eloquent at times and gritty at others. Excellent casting. Excellent production design. I was pretty drawn into the world.

Maybe I'll read the books now. Sometimes I think it's easier to enjoy screen adaptations if you haven't read the source material.

H. Bruce Miller said...

I'm on Volume IV of "Song of Ice and Fire." It's a very entertaining read (obviously, or I wouldn't have waded through it so far) and very skillfully crafted, but I wouldn't call it "great literature." Great literature says something profound about the human condition. Martin's work does not. IMO.

H. Bruce Miller said...

I'll add that if I hadn't started watching "Game of Thrones" I probably would have dismissed Martin's work as "just another fantasy novel" and missed out on a great read. I'm glad I didn't.

H. Bruce Miller said...

"in casting Sean Bean, I knew straight away his character would have a less than happy ending..."

HA! That's the truth. I think only Steve Buscemi has been killed off more times on screen.

Anonymous said...

I have watched 'v for vendetta' too many times :(

Anonymous said...

Well its started, china has announced at Dalian ( china ) that it will be buying Intel, Apple, and Boeing.

Of course the stock market will rally, and wall-st will smile, but essentially the crown jewels will be walking away, its not enough that all that is made by the top ten is 'made in china', but soon will all be owned by china.

Sure 'congress' will posture and poly-tickian's will talk much, but essentially china is now the buyer of last resort of ALL, and CHINA is now smart, they're no longer buying the SHIT ( UST, USB ), now they're buying the best. As I have said all along, chinese tourists coming to gamble and hire Bend prostitutes is coming soon. At the end of the day, ameriKKKan people offer little else to the world than serving the chinese at buffets, and offering their children as prostitutes.


At what point does the 3rd world hair-lip in Bend make the cognitive recognition that the game is over? Bend-Over(tm).