[Blend]

[Abyss]

Briar King, on 13 January 2014 - 08:44 PM, said:

Holy shit I can't wait to see Obryen fight Gregor! I loved that glance at the fight.

I am VERY curious so see how close to the books they make that fight.

[Ceda Cicero]

I for one am stoked (and not surprised, given all the crazy plot points around the bend) to hear that the action will be more evenly spread across the season and that they're shifting from the whole "8 episodes of build up and one WTF episode" formula. Not that I minded that in previous seasons. I just think for book readers especially, this will be a fantastic season, since every episode has the potential to keep us on the edge of our seats, in contrast to previous seasons when we were on the edge of our seats waiting for Ned, Blackwater, and Red Wedding.

[HiddenOne]

But who is going to pay for my HBO subscription?

[worry]

HiddenOne, on 10 February 2014 - 07:29 PM, said:

But who is going to pay for my HBO subscription?

Yo!
http://www.avclub.co...hbo-go-p-107042

[Stormcat]

I think they have done a really good job with casting so far. I am happy with Obryen and I hope the fight scene is amazing.

[worry]

Stormcat, on 10 February 2014 - 08:07 PM, said:

I think they have done a really good job with casting so far. I am happy with Obryen and I hope the fight scene is amazing.

plus

[Abyss]

Ceda Cicero, on 10 February 2014 - 07:23 PM, said:

I for one am stoked (and not surprised, given all the crazy plot points around the bend) to hear that the action will be more evenly spread across the season and that they're shifting from the whole "8 episodes of build up and one WTF episode" formula. Not that I minded that in previous seasons. I just think for book readers especially, this will be a fantastic season, since every episode has the potential to keep us on the edge of our seats, in contrast to previous seasons when we were on the edge of our seats waiting for Ned, Blackwater, and Red Wedding.

Isn't the battle at the Wall still planned to be the big finale?

[Stormcat]

Just gonna put this here... Its how I feel about all the Facebook chatter right now.. NSFW

https://www.youtube....h?v=1CLCOvZOh1o

This post has been edited by Stormcat: 10 February 2014 - 08:29 PM

[Werthead]

Quote

Isn't the battle at the Wall still planned to be the big finale?

Yes, but:

(SPOILERS from the third book)

Spoiler

You also have Joffrey's death, Tyrion's trial and the Oberyn/Gregor fight, which are likely to all be in episodes 2-8 or thereabouts. Then Episode 10 will likely have Tyrion killing Tywin and the arrival of UnCat. There's also the earlier skirmishing attack on the Wall (the small one led by Ygritte and Tormund) before the massive battle in episode 9. It also sounds like there'll be the surrender of Moat Cailin and possibly Ramsay's forces killing the ironborn garrison, Bran and his little group almost getting caught by White Walkers and wights before meeting Bloodraven and so on. Then there's Yara's story, which will be partially new and sounds like it will involve an attack on the Dreadfort. There's also Arya and the Hound's twisted relationship, the Hound getting apparently fatally wounded etc. There's Daenerys taking Meereen, her dragons going crazy and the beginnings of the rebellion against her. Then there's Littlefinger killing Lysa, Brienne in the Riverlands (how far they get into that story is unclear) and probably a bunch of other stuff I'm forgetting.

The Battle for the Wall will clearly be the big Episode 9 event of the season, but there's going to be a lot of others spread along its length. In particular, Joffrey's wedding and death will almost certainly be at the end of either Episode 2 or 3, so pretty early on.

[Ceda Cicero]

Aside from the crucial plot point that ends the royal wedding, I'm really looking forward to seeing the sheer scale of it based on the glimpses in the preview and comments from actors. One of my biggest disappointments in season 1 was how puny the Hand's Tourney seemed. It looks like they really pulled out all the stops for this, by contrast.

[Blend]

Ceda Cicero, on 12 February 2014 - 03:00 PM, said:

Aside from the crucial plot point that ends the royal wedding, I'm really looking forward to seeing the sheer scale of it based on the glimpses in the preview and comments from actors. One of my biggest disappointments in season 1 was how puny the Hand's Tourney seemed. It looks like they really pulled out all the stops for this, by contrast.

Agreed - it looks like it's going to be truly awesome!!

[Blend]

Looks like it's gonna be frikkin awesome sauce!!!

Spoiler

Anyone think the zombie on horseback at the end might be Coldhands (was that his name)?

[Stormcat]

Yes I think that is him.

[worry]

My hero!

[worry]

I'm not sure if they've broken down the specifics yet, but I do think they've said that 8 seasons total is the aim regardless, so I'm thinking roughly 2 seasons to combine both books.

[Werthead]

2 seasons for AFFC/ADWD is unlikely. That would mean badly rushing the final two books (expected to be huge) to fit into two seasons and there is insufficient material in AFFC/ADWD to fill two seasons satisfyingly without sacrifcing the show's pacing.

In addition, there is a growing feeling that we might only get seven seasons. All of the recent comments by directors and actors have said seven, and the producers have not said eight for some time now.

How the breakdown is expected to go for eight seasons:

Spoiler

Season 4: The remaining 30%-odd of Book 3 and the opening sections of both Book 4 and Book 5. Some storylines will stretch across the whole season (Jon Snow and Sam, probably Tyrion and King's Landing, possibly Arya). Others will likely wrap up earlier and launch into their Book 4/5 material (Brienne, Sansa and Daenerys, all definitely). Some will take rather different roads to the book but get to the same end-point (Yara's storyline seems to replace her Deepwood Motte storyline from ADWD; Davos and Stannis visit Braavos to treat with the Iron Bank, which seems to replace the negotiation scenes in ADWD). Some character will almost immediately launch into their Book 4/5 storylines (Bran and Theon, most notably). There will be some new, non-book material as well: Walder Frey is reported to appear in at least one episode.

Season 5: This will cover almost all of AFFC and ADWD's remaining material. To condense the two books into one season, it's likely compromises will be made. The Kingsmoot may take place wholly off-screen and we don't meet up with Victarion and/or Euron until a few episodes later. Yara will likely hook up with Team Stannis via her doomed Theon rescue mission rather than going back to the Iron Islands and then to Deepwood Motte, which simplifies her story a lot. Aegon and the Golden Company and the machinations in Dorne will likely be streamlined. I don't think we'll see all of the Sand Snakes or all of the various captains of the Golden Company, and shortcuts may be taken to keep the story more concise. It's unlikely we'll see characters like Darkstar, Tyrion's journey will probably be a hell of a lot faster and there'll be less dwelling on the complex internal politics of the wildlings (for Jon Snow's story) or Meereen (for Dany's). A key issue is how HBO handle the three big battles that are kicking off at the end of ADWD and will be resolved in TWoW: Storm's End will almost certainly happen off-screen, but we probably need to see both Winterfell and Meereen. Because of the budgetary issues, HBO can handle one big battle per season, so I suspect we will see one battle resolved at the end of Season 5 (probably Meereen) and the other in the opening episode or two of Season 6 (probably Winterfell).

Season 6: This will predominantly cover TWoW.
Season 7: This will cover the rest of TWoW and kick-start ADoS.
Season 8: This will finish off the whole series.

In the event of only seven seasons, most of TWoW and all of ADoS would have to fit in one season each, which is going to be tough by itself.

[worry]

7 seasons is a tight fit, but I was being fairly basic in terms of the fluidity....I think AFFC/ADWD will start here in Season 4 (MINI-SPOILER: the trailer shows Bran possibly meeting his friend the tree, for instance) and possibly stretch into Season 6. Not strictly Seasons 5 and 6, more like partial seasons that bleed into each other both before and after.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

I really wasn't impressed with the last season but the trailers so far look pretty interesting - and I think I definitely want to see how they handle the main events of this season. Pleased to hear they're dropping the season build up format too, hopefully it will pick up a little for that. Most of my disappointment was that I didn't like the Red Wedding though.

[worry]

Neither did some of the guests.