HBO greenlights A Game of Thrones pilot!

[keg in kc]

EDIT: Changed the original header to mark this as the thread where spoilers are allowed (but not necessarily recommended...). Created a new, spoiler-free thread for Ice and Fire virgins...


This is awesome...

Huge, Huge News

Nov. 11th, 2008 at 10:29 PM

HBO has given the production order.

They will be filming the pilot episode of A GAME OF THRONES.

It's just the pilot so far. They'll need to see that before they decide whether to proceed with a full season's episodes. So let's all hope the pilot will kick serious ass.

It should. David Benioff and Dan Weiss did a terrific job with the script. And yes, all of you can relax, it's very faithful. Dan and David will be the executive producers for the pilot and (we hope) the eventual series.

More details when I have 'em. The news is very fresh. HBO just issued their own press release, which should be up on their website soon, if it's not there already.

Winter is coming to HBO. Hot damn.

[allen_kcCard]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Wait just a goddamn minute now...

A Dance with Dragons is only the 2nd book he's published in this series in the last DECADE?!?!

Okay asswipe, you'd better start writing a hell of a lot faster than that. I gave up on the Dark Tower books because I got the idea that Steven King was just ****ing with me and was never going to actually finish the series. I'm not waiting until I'm 40 to see how this story ends. I'd imagine I'll be through the series by sometime in September; I better hear rumors about a release date for the next installment sometime in 2013...

He talked a lot about it in his notablog thing. When he finished feast it was after he decided to split it into two books, so he thought he had a lot of headway into dance. Once he started though, he had to end up reworking the shit out of the 400ish pages he already had for dance, and then start adding more to it and reworking all that. Add in tours to promote the earlier books abroad, and all sorts of other stuff, and things went really really slowly. Blah blah...either way, he has an excuse for the delay, and it didn't seem to be that he was sitting in his ass for 10 years.

[kcxiv]

He's also said he's a very very slow writer. He has said he knows how it all ends for the last 2 books. So hopefully he can finish the last 2 books fairly sooonish. Dude is 62 years old. So we will see.

[keg in kc]

He dips his pen in an awful lot of wells, unfortunately (for SoIaF fans). He's constantly working on a ton of other stuff not at all related to his Westeros books, and he seems to travel all the time, to conventions and the like.

He knows how old he is, though, so I doubt we'll be going 5 years between books again. My fear, though, is that a similar thing happens with him that happened with Robert Jordan.

[allen_kcCard]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

He dips his pen in an awful lot of wells, unfortunately (for SoIaF fans). He's constantly working on a ton of other stuff not at all related to his Westeros books, and he seems to travel all the time, to conventions and the like.

He knows how old he is, though, so I doubt we'll be going 5 years between books again. My fear, though, is that a similar thing happens with him that happened with Robert Jordan.

Paging Brandon Sanderson, Paging Brandon Sanderson.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by kcxiv

He's also said he's a very very slow writer. He has said he knows how it all ends for the last 2 books. So hopefully he can finish the last 2 books fairly sooonish. Dude is 62 years old. So we will see.

My concern is that he'll do what Douglas Adams did.

Adams wrote through to "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish" in the Hitchhikers guide series. The ending is very satisfying and you walk away from the series with some unanswered questions, but questions you're happy to have and resolutions for the characters that you're good with.

Then he decides to write a 5th book. In interviews afterward he acknowledged he was 'in a dark place' when he wrote the book. So he pretty much undoes everything from the 4th one, ****s all the characters over and then ends the book.

Spoiler!

He literally blinks them all out of existence, every last one of them, making the entire series irrelevant.

He pissed me right off there. He said he needed to write another book for the series to put things in the right after he felt better about himself, life, etc...

Then he died.

So some hack comes along and writes a 6th book but it's still melancholy because he appears to have simply tried to finesse the shitty ending that Adams gave us before he croaked. It put a bit of a pall over the whole series in my eyes. It just makes the entire 'adventure' a dour bit of emo crap, but written with British sensibilities. To anyone that hasn't read the series but wants to, just stop after 4, you'll thank me for it.

Tomorrow's not a given, George. Let's do better than 1 every 5 years this time.

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

He dips his pen in an awful lot of wells, unfortunately (for SoIaF fans). He's constantly working on a ton of other stuff not at all related to his Westeros books, and he seems to travel all the time, to conventions and the like.

He knows how old he is, though, so I doubt we'll be going 5 years between books again. My fear, though, is that a similar thing happens with him that happened with Robert Jordan.

Ugh. I'm trying to read book 12 right now and it is brutal. I give Sanderson credit for stepping in but the drop off is severe. It's a dog's breakfast.

[DaFace]

Originally Posted by vailpass

Ugh. I'm trying to read book 12 right now and it is brutal. I give Sanderson credit for stepping in but the drop off is severe. It's a dog's breakfast.

Must be personal preference. I found Sanderson's books to be refreshing. Jordan's pace was way too slow for me in the latter books.

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by DaFace

Must be personal preference. I found Sanderson's books to be refreshing. Jordan's pace was way too slow for me in the latter books.

Really? I'm finding Sanderson to move much slower than Jordan. It seems to me that Sanderson spends much more time describing settings than he does on characater action. I keep thinking "okay,okay enough of the backdrop let's get some Seanchan vs. Asha Man battle activity up in this motha!"

I am only 300 pages or so in though, so maybe I haven't got far enough to judge.

[Red Brooklyn]

Originally Posted by Buck

I'd like to hear how some of you who read the book think all of the actors are doing in portraying their characters.

All of the major characters are doing such a remarkable job that I honestly can't believe it. They all seem to really get it. Sansa is the only one who is weird. But the character is a difficult sell, so I'll give her a pass for now. I'm also not really into Viserys. He's fine, but he's not perfect.

Some of the minor characters aren't quite what imagined. Renly, especially. I didn't even realize that's who that was supposed to be until someone (Littlefinger?) said his name.

In terms of who I think are the outstanding actors on the show:

Dany (Man, she's outstanding.)
Ned (Sean Bean is just killing this thing.)
Tyrion (Probably should get some noms.)
Arya (Hard to find kid actors this good.)
Robert (Addy's owning it.)
Cersei (The scene between she and Robert in Ep 5 was my favorite of the series so far.)
Samwell (Perfect. Exactly how I imagined him and full of nuance.)
Jaime (Only because he's fleshing out a character that is pretty thin in the first book.)
Joff (Kid's good.)

I don't like all of those characters, but I love they way all of those actors are tackling them.

[Red Brooklyn]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

Syrio is another favorite from the books. Glad to see him translated so well on screen.

Agreed.

And I'm still not caught up on the tv series. But so far I've been pleased.

Sounds like it gets even better.

[Red Brooklyn]

Originally Posted by Hawk

Honestly, the first half of the 4th book has been a little slow compared to the first three, but it seems to be picking up.

Interesting.

For me, Clash Of Kings was the slowest book. I'm about half way through Feast and I'm really enjoying it. I love the way some certain themes are rising to the surface. The series is taking a different shape now. Some stuff that Martin has always touched on (which I've loved) is now becoming the focus of the game. And I love it.

Asha is a great character, as is Damphair. Brienne is continuing to surprise me. As much as I miss Tyrion, Arya and Jon, I'm really digging where the story is going.

I'd probably rank this book 3rd so far. Behind Game Of Thrones and ahead of Clash Of Kings.

But we'll see how I feel once I'm finished.

[Hawk]

Originally Posted by Red Brooklyn

Interesting.

For me, Clash Of Kings was the slowest book. I'm about half way through Feast and I'm really enjoying it. I love the way some certain themes are rising to the surface. The series is taking a different shape now. Some stuff that Martin has always touched on (which I've loved) is now becoming the focus of the game. And I love it.

Asha is a great character, as is Damphair. Brienne is continuing to surprise me. As much as I miss Tyrion, Arya and Jon, I'm really digging where the story is going.

I'd probably rank this book 3rd so far. Behind Game Of Thrones and ahead of Clash Of Kings.

But we'll see how I feel once I'm finished.

Maybe it is just because the end of the third book left me wanting more Tyrion, Jon and Dany, so the complete absence of any information or POV chapters for those characters caught me by surprise and frustrated me (I didn't realize they would not be heard from at all until I got a third of the way through). When you go into it thinking you're going to get a continuation of the story from the awesome end of the third book, and you don't, it makes the story drag a bit. Plus I'm not fond of Cersei, so having so much focus on her wasn't what I was craving. I got over it and enjoyed the last 2/3 of the book more, even Cersei's part was really good in the last part of the 4th book.

Really looking forward to the 5th one, and glad to hear that it seems like he will advance everybody's story in this one as opposed to leaving out so many of my favorite characters like he did in the 4th one. Having no Tyrion was the hardest, I love his character.

[Red Brooklyn]

Originally Posted by Hawk

Maybe it is just because the end of the third book left me wanting more Tyrion, Jon and Dany, so the complete absence of any information or POV chapters for those characters caught me by surprise and frustrated me (I didn't realize they would not be heard from at all until I got a third of the way through). When you go into it thinking you're going to get a continuation of the story from the awesome end of the third book, and you don't, it makes the story drag a bit. Plus I'm not fond of Cersei, so having so much focus on her wasn't what I was craving. I got over it and enjoyed the last 2/3 of the book more, even Cersei's part was really good in the last part of the 4th book.

Really looking forward to the 5th one, and glad to hear that it seems like he will advance everybody's story in this one as opposed to leaving out so many of my favorite characters like he did in the 4th one. Having no Tyrion was the hardest, I love his character.

I can understand that.

I had so many people from this thread (and another board) warn me about Feast before I started it that I knew what to expect in terms of who would be left out. Had I not known, I'm sure I would have been just as surprised and frustrated as you were.

Yeah, the 5th book should be something special.

[keg in kc]

Originally Posted by allen_kcCard

Paging Brandon Sanderson, Paging Brandon Sanderson.

I can't think of a worse choice to finish Song of Ice and Fire. Sanderson doesn't write dark or mature. I'd page Joe Abercrombie.

[Valiant]

Damn Ondemand HBO, they are missing episode 5.. So I cannot watch until they put it up.. Thought about watching on the computer, but if I do that I will wait til I buy the 27" monitor..