All Series Must Die (Which Is Why There Are New Ones) -- The Game of Thrones Series Spinoffs

Talk about going all in:

http://io9.gizmodo.com/hbo-and-george-r-r-martin-are-developing-four-game-of-1794928697

While we’ve known for awhile that there was a possibility of a prequel series, this is a lot more of a commitment than we’d previously heard. According to IGN, David Benioff and David Weiss will be on board all four of the projects, with George R.R. Martin helping to write two of them. Jane Goldman (Kingsman: The Secret Service) and Carly Wray (The Leftovers) each have a project with him. The other two shows will be written by Max Borenstein (Kong: Skull Island) and Brian Helgeland (LA: Confidential).

At this point I am now fully convinced he won't bother finishing the book series.

seems a good bet

Tales from the Stoneheart
Sewing with Sansa
Cleganebowl annual events
Fear the Game of Thrones

too bad ian mcshane is busy at the moment

please let someone interesting get to do the music for at least one of these.

(NB djawadi has improved over time but still)

Seems like the only memorable thing he did was the main theme.

The Light of the Seven, the piece that was playing under Cersei's grand plan in the beginning of the most recent season finale, is pretty cool.

https://youtu.be/pS-gbqbVd8c

Is there going to be a Sand Snakes spinoff on TNT?

thats the sound of a thousand fantasy writers re-purposing their nerdy ass shit to be used as GoT spinoff material

And then after a season or two they all team up in Game of Thrones Defenders and beat up Finn Jones one more time.

Oh I'm sorry -- five, not four.

http://grrm.livejournal.com/536859.html

I kinda love how he goes into deep detail on all this and then at the bottom in a bigger font size and all caps goes

I AM STILL WORKING ON WINDS OF WINTER

No doubt.

And as for how many of these will come to fruition:

Some of the reports of these developments seem to suggest that HBO might be adding four successor shows to the schedule to replace GAME OF THRONES. Decades of experience in television and film have taught me that nothing is ever really certain... but I do think it's very unlikely that we'll be getting four (or five) series. At least not immediately. What we do have here is an order for four -- now five -- pilot scripts. How many pilots will be filmed, and how many series might come out of that, remains to be seen. (If we do get five series on the air, I might have to change my name to Dick Direwolf).

Some stuff

https://grrm.livejournal.com/550336.html

bryan seems like a hardworking, productive guy. how is he at writing books?

after last season, I am about as excited about seeing a game of thrones spinoff season as i am to see the next star wars movie

um yesssss

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mbkxnp/hbos-game-of-thrones-prequel-the-long-night-george-rr-martin-vgtrn

GRRM:

Yes, this is a prequel, not a sequel. None of the characters or actors from GAME OF THRONES will appear in the new show. All of the successor shows we’ve been developing have been prequels, as I have mentioned before. This one really puts the PRE in prequel, since it is set not ninety years before GAME OF THRONES (like Dunk & Egg), or a few hundred years, but rather ten thousand years (well, assuming the oral histories of the First Men are accurate, but there are maesters at the Citadel who insist it has only been half that long). We’re very early in the process, of course, with the pilot order just in, so we don’t have a director yet, or a cast, or a location, or even a title. (My vote would be THE LONG NIGHT, which says it all, but I’d be surprised if that’s where we end up. More likely HBO will want to work the phrase “game of thrones” in there somewhere. We’ll know sooner or later)

dunno, but this sounds badass to me

"Thousands of years ago, there came a night that lasted a generation," Old Nan explained to Bran back in GoT's first season. "Kings froze to death in their castles, same as the shepherds in their huts. And women smothered their babies rather than see them starve, and wept, and felt the tears freeze on their cheeks... In that darkness, the White Walkers came for the first time. They swept through cities and kingdoms, riding their dead horses, hunting with their packs of pale spiders, big as hounds."

Jane Goldman as showrunner is...not promising

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNwwt25mheo

i guess the dragons are still rendering

matt smith? being scary? i always find that so unnerving because he seems like the kind of non-threatening doofus who furiously resents being a non-threatening doofus and then blows up a town.

I mean, without real time source material to contend with, this might be solid.

The source material was basically what made GoT good, though.

this does have source material—it’s based off the biggest section martin’s fire and blood, which is a history of the targaryen family, plus a few short stories that go into more detail, like “the princess and the queen”

Oh right, it might be good then.

My point was more about the “real time” descriptor, meaning they won’t be outpacing them source material during the run and have to scramble to tie shit together. Okay

lol stupid phone added the stray “Okay”

Yes, if based on completed GRRM material it probably will be decent (though of course I've personally yet to see evidence that he can conclude an epic fantasy story in a satisfying manner).

the story they're planning to tell here def has an ending, and a bit of a scouring of the shire-style epilogue which i doubt they'll include

Really enjoyed the first episode of House of the Dragon. Definitely up for lots more political machinations in this world. The young girl Targaryen was very good and Matt Smith looks like he's having (and will be) lots of fun.

Pretty wild - if not surprising - that the original show has finished and we now have the spin off and still no new book has been published.

forgot about this thread. there was a little discussion about it on the "but is it on netflix" thread. fully expect this spinoff series to end before the next book arrives

i'm debating about whether i should go back and read fire & blood again or just let the series surprise me. idk if i can resist lol

Rhaenyra looks eerily like John Mulaney imo? Am I crazy?

Thought the first episode was entertaining enough. I hope they find ways to broaden the sense of the world beyond just the inner turmoil of the Targaryens. My favorite thing about the GOT books and HBO series was the way the world kept getting bigger throughout them. So I hope we get scenes in the free cities and so forth.

xp i will never unsee that lol

I sort of got Elrond of Rivendell vibes from Rhaenyra.

Just watched E2 and am enjoying very much. Most of my friends are still riding high on the whole “game of thrones sucks now” vibes from the end of the series - so feel like I’m going this alone

i found the first ep reprehensibly gratuitous in its sex, violence and exposition. like if an AI was fed all the episodes and told to make a spin off.

Ha! Much less of it in e2. But the weird sad orgy in e1 did feel very unnecessary. Like they thought people would complain if there wasn’t an ott brothel scene.
The violence was just right tho, imho

Yeah I was a bit put off by the half assed tavern orgy scene and the various gory bludgeonings, like OK we get it, you're reminding us what this show was all about before it went all Iceman Cometh.

what i ultimately liked about GoT at its best was how lore was told through plot, how battles became epic iliad-esque dips into hell, where the quiet moments presented opportunities for exploring character development and not chances to be even freakier, how the shifts in locale and different storylines gave natural narrative gear shifting. The sadism and tits were to be endured more than celebrated. Now its like everybody's joffrey. WTF would i wanna watch that for.
but of course i'll probably watch the 2nd ep. I'm a tv masochist.

there's no gore or sex in episode two so don't worry

there is the possibility of an incendiary incident – but let's not spoil things.

I'm not squeamish! It's just kinda boring and predictable.
I'll watch ep 2 before I complain too much more but the telegraphing of the story direction (and eventual red herrings) are coming fast and furious in episode 1. Gosh, i wonder if those cuts the king is getting on the iron throne might be a more serious problem than they appear?

i feel like that's not supposed to be a surprise? they've made it pretty obvious, as they literally talked about the gash on his back that isn't healing.

this first season is gonna be unlike anything else that has ever aired on tv. from what i can tell, this season is gonna cover roughly 30 years of westerosi history, and they can't really compress the timeline because there are characters who factor heavily into the coming conflict who haven't even been born yet lol

xp, of course; i'm just using that as an example. The birthing murder scene was also obvious from 80 feet away. Every character's presumed arc is being played to the rafters right now to the point where bad guys are twirling mustaches "but they aren't really BAD so much as they are machiavellian do you see"
Wake me when there's an interesting conversation.

xp

yes, I was browsing The World of Ice & Fire last night while I was watching this and counted 12 Targaryen kings between this one and Robert, so this series has quite a lot of ground to cover.

Is that their intention? How many season is this supposed to be?

they're planning to cover a period of history called "the dance of the dragons." i won't elaborate or spoil, but the period they're looking to cover is about three decades, not the 20 or so decades until robert's rebellion.

yeah I assume there will be yet another proposed series after this one that fills in some of the gaps. I had thought we'd see the mad king in this series but we are way way way early for that.

His wiki says 6ft 5, big enough! Weird life to make it to a pro rugby team then after that doesn't work out become an actor and succeed at that.

Yeah he is very tall in real life but apparently still not as tall as the character in the books. So the are still trying to exaggerate his heighy

yeah in the books he’s like 6’11 or something

The only thing I found a bit annoying was the episode felt really short, like forty mins or so.

I feel this is not gonna give us a lot until we have to wait two years.

Enjoyed it, fell asleep with ten mins to go, but that's not a criticism

Not sure about the Jack-the-Ripper drama cockney accents

Yeah I feel this show is walking on a very narrow precipice, danger at every step, that sort of thing or general comely wench cosplay, or somehow the horror of the Ed Sheeran GOT cameo feels another yawning chasm.

Recently signed up. Logged everything that I saw at the cinema last year (most of it via Mubi Go).

https://letterboxd.com/krakow81🕸/

The only thing I found a bit annoying was the episode felt really short, like forty mins or so.

I feel this is not gonna give us a lot until we have to wait two years.

Supposedly the whole idea behind this show is it’s less epic (no dragons, no massive cast on a dozen sets), so that it can actually come back more frequently. Although for all I know their idea of “more frequently” is two years.

Argh sorry for the weird quote - that was copied from another thread like a week ago.

First episode was only 42 minutes! According to imdb the next ep is only going to be 33 minutes, so even more slight. Really enjoyed this and I'm not looking for epic hour and a half final season of GoT stuff, but that feels really slight for a 7 episode series.

I like that it is amusing but not LOL funny.

yeah it is strange for a relatively big franchise show to be tonally light

Actually only six episodes so even slighter xps

33 mins is like sitcom length

this was good, again, while it lasted.

it is so like a videogame, right down to the plot of 'i have to talk to people to be allowed to fight in the tourney'

I really really liked it and wished I could watch it every day.

yeah it's weird how little of it there is. but i assume they might have some longer episodes as the season goes on, idk.

to me it is perfect

jousting scenes were cool! i’ve not seen it staged royal-rumble style like that, i’m used to it being just a single joust so that was an exciting device

little bald child is doing a sweet job.

yeah Egg rules

First episode was only 42 minutes! According to imdb the next ep is only going to be 33 minutes,

not watching this but have observef countless big budget shows following this pattern

I like this so far, it reminds me of the good/funny parts of Witcher.

yeah, that is the game i was thinking of for sure.

This show is nearly making up for the last few seasons of Game of Thrones and most of House of Draonz.

In contrast, my mom, who to my endless surprise heavily got into GoT the other year out of the blue -- hadn't even ever mentioned it to me once in passing beforehand -- and then House and has rewatched both series completely at least twice now, said she keeps trying with this and doesn't like said funny tone. Apparently she keeps trying to watch it and gives up after another ten minutes or so.

maybe she’d enjoy the novella more as an entry-point? (narrated by Harry Lloyd aka Viserys Targareryn)

I want to slap Aerion, and I knoowwww that is the whole point but ugh these nasty old Targs. I knew before it happened that Egg was gonna come up and stop it.

I like House of Dragon a lot but I'm finding this very enjoyable

all the bawdy songs were very funny

big fan of egg

I really want the lyrics to that one he was singing whittling in the tree!

here you go https://gameofthrones.fandom.com/wiki/The_hammer_and_the_anvil

Love that it's just a westeros version of the Miss Lucy song.

Yeah I'd picked up enough of it to figure that's what it was riffing off, but awesome thanks.

It seems a mistake the episodes are so short as this is such a fun show.

I think it would easily benefit from being longer each week rather than like sitcom length.

Feel a bit like the reasons it is good are the same reasons they might decide not to back it with longer episodes, just underestimating it maybe, or thinking it won't be popular because it doesn't have dragons in it.

Good that they've already confirmed a season two at least.

This show is so great. Nicely teed up now.

it's been fun with no dud eps. Dunc vibes a bit like the naif King Arthur (played by Nigel Terry) in the first part of Boorman's Excalibur. Which is good.

It's exciting but I'm almost a bit disappointed the Plot has kicked in. I rather enjoyed the ambling-nothing-happens stuff.

I used to go to school with one of the actors in this. He was in another year, but on sports afternoons we would hang back by the goal together and chat about the role-playing club, because we were both so shit at football.

Was gonna say before that my one fear is that this was threatening to go down the howaya leprechaun Ed Sheeran faux-Irish route and sadly this week's episode has done that.

Couple that with classic Thrones issue of refusing to use the few drops of story they've established before a finale episode and this is a bit frustrating. Like, it is ludicrous that what should be a ten-minute battle scene is dragged out over two episodes, just back yourselves ffs, this isn't literary fiction.

I agree that the other scenes are potentially just as fun or valid but teasing the one action scene so heavily suggests whoever made this show doesn't, like it's just pathetic levels of digression.

This week's whole flashback also just feels like a different show, even beyond the dire accents. Is it really so costly to make telly that they have to serve up a season that's about as long as a longish film and then wait about 3% of the average lifetime for another? Feels more an issue of deeply cautious and controlled production and writing than anything else.

i don’t disagree but i’ll take a corny little flashback over any more of that gnarly-ass meatgrinder of a battle jeeeesus that was crazy

i mean i knew it’d be gnarly but fuck me, i’ll never get used to that bludgeoning brutality

The amount of times Dunk got stabbed or whacked on the head with a mace went quickly from horrific to absurd.

I thought the episode was amazing!

The flashback just didn't seem really necessary to me. Like we have a decent sense of his past now, it was like no we need one highly specific traumatic incident for some reason.

Agree the battle was kind of grotesque. Thrones gonna Throne I guess. How many Thrones fights have ended with someone punching another person in the face over and over?

Me too xp

That battle though. Fucking hell

Thanks for the warning! Definitely like the show but not really into head-punching violence any more. Might skip it.

Meantime:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6w7O1kwuBk

Yay I’m excited.

looking forward to this!

Great series, enjoy the shorter episode length. Agree that the flashback was too long. Baelor’s death iirc is pretty abrupt in the novella too, you just get to really like him and then that.

that traumatized me. I'm still thinking about it.